


the most terrifying thing

by Walutahanga



Series: another whom we do not know [2]
Category: The New Legends of Monkey (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Identity Issues, POV Outsider, Post-Season/Series 01, Revelations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-06-06 10:54:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15193241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Walutahanga/pseuds/Walutahanga
Summary: Tripitaka returns to Pallawa and Monica is disturbed, because the girl who left is not the one who came back...





	1. Chapter 1

Monica hears it from the kitchen; a sudden hush in the tavern's usual murmur of conversation. Someone less experienced might have found it a welcome change, but she knows better. Even the musicians have stopped playing, the twang of a badly played lute echoing loudly in the silence. 

She grabs her club from where it hangs by the kitchen door and storms out onto the common room, ready to break up whatever brawl is looming. 

"Alright, you lot - " She trails off as she sees what everyone is staring at.

In the tavern doorway is a small familiar blue-clad figure leaning heavily on a walking staff. Except the blue isn't so blue anymore; grubby and worn and split at the seams. The little monk's hair has grown out past its’ previous close cut, now thick and wild and nearly reaching her shoulders.

What makes Monica catch her breath though, is the rippled red scar down the girl's left cheekbone, like someone had struck her a glancing blow that just missed her eye.

"Tripitaka?" Monica breathes, lowering the club.  

The girl winces as if it had been some filthy epitaph. "Not quite," she says softly, avoiding Monica’s gaze.

Monica becomes aware of the eyes watching and rounds on the common room. "What the hell are you lot looking at? This isn't a floorshow." Everyone quickly turns away and conversation resumes.

Monica gestures at the girl. "Come into the kitchen, love." Out back she hangs up her club and pulls up a chair by the fire. "Sit down before you fall down. How long since you've eaten?"  

"Two days," the girl says, leaning her staff against the wall and sinking shakily into the chair. "But I don't - " Monica shoves a water jug at her and scoops up a freshly baked bread from a tray the cook just pulled from the oven.

"Let that cool a bit," she says, dumping it on a plate in front of the girl. "Small bites or you'll make yourself sick…" The girl is already tearing off bits with shaking fingers and shoving them in her mouth. Monica glares at the cook until he stops staring and gets back to work. 

What the hell had happened? The last she’d seen Tripitaka, the girl had been bright-eyed and hopeful, off to save the world with her new friends. This girl who’s come back looks like the world has walked all over her and gotten a few kicks in for good measure.

Monica waits until the girl’s slowed eating before touching her chin, tilting her face so that Monica can see the scar better. It looks like a burn, the scar tissue rippled and shiny.

"That looks recent." Tripitaka doesn't answer and Monica asks the question she's been dreading: "Where are those friends of yours?" The girl flinches again and Monica’s heart sinks as she pulls away. "How did it happen? Fighting demons, I suppose."

"What?" The girl looks startled, then hastily assures her: "No, no. They're fine, they're alive." 

"Where are they then?"  

"On the quest, I assume. Retrieving the scrolls." The girl tears off another piece of bread, signalling she doesn’t want to talk about it any longer. Monica persists.

"And they let you just come back alone?" 

The faintest hesitation. "Yes." 

"Did they let you go, or did you just decide to go?" 

The girl sighs. "I was asked to leave, Monica. I'll swear it on whatever oath you want." 

Perplexed, Monica frowns at her. "Did they find out you were a girl?" She hadn't thought it would matter, but perhaps gods thought about things differently to humans. 

"They were fine with me being a girl. They asked me to leave because I had no place on the quest." The girl drops the bread and presses the heels of her hands to her eyes, like a fretful child trying to hold in tears. "I'm not Tripitaka. I never was. The Scholar should have told me - " She stops, biting her lip. 

"Told you what?" Monica says.

But the girl shakes her head stubbornly. She has the thin, exhausted look of someone on the very edge and unable to go any further without shattering.

"Alright then,” Monica says after a moment. “I'll get you some fresh clothes. You're going to visit the bath-house and take a good long soak, then hop into bed and get some rest." 

The girl gives her a teary look somewhere between surprise and gratitude. "I only meant to stop by - "

"Hush up. Like I'd let you walk away looking like that. It's indecent." She plucks at an open seam on the girl's sleeve. "Now. Clothes."

* * *

While Tripitaka sleeps, Monica goes through her pack. She feels no remorse; her feeling is that if a young woman goes away fine and comes back a year later ragged, starved and scarred, then it is one’s moral obligation to investigate.

She finds little of interest; some clothes in even worse condition than what the girl was wearing when she arrived and a set of papers in a language that Monica can’t read. She puzzles over the words and decides the girl must have written them herself; they look as if they’ve been scribbled, crossed out, crumpled up and cried over. There’s a few smears like tear-stains here and there. 

The girl’s staff isn’t strictly speaking a staff either. It has a broad, blunt metal head like a shovel. Monica’s seen monks carrying them, to either bury bodies by the side of the road or whack sense into brigands. Moon-spades, her mother used to call them. She supposes it’s a better choice than a sword or a polearm. Carry a weapon and some idiot is always going to try to take it away from you. A moon-spade might invite ridicule in some places but it’s a rare fool who cares enough to attack you for it.

Monica is just examining the carvings on the shaft – more odd symbols like those on the papers – when Tripitaka jerks awake with a muffled yelp. She lies stiffly for a moment, like someone trying to recall where they are, then slowly uncurls, sitting up.

“Monica?”

“Just checking your pack for mending,” Monica says. She pokes the pile of clothes with a disdainful foot. “We might be best off putting the whole lot in the rag bin and starting from scratch.”

“Maybe.” Tripitaka agrees, rubbing her eyes.

“Bad dreams?” Monica says. Tripitaka makes a vague sound of agreement. “I’ve got some herbs in the kitchen that’ll knock you right out.”

“No.” Tripitaka’s voice is sharp. After a moment, she adds: “I don’t want things that will… affect me.”

Monica scrutinises her thoughtfully. “Alright then,” she says after a moment. “Just some tea.”

They share a pot of tea until Tripitaka starts nodding off and Monica gently scoops the cup out of her hands before it can spill. She pulls the covers over the girl and leaves her to sleep.

* * *

The next morning over breakfast, she dismisses Tripitaka’s vague suggestions of leaving.

“What kind of friend shows up after two years, stays the night, and goes again without a word? A damned rude one, that’s what.”

She’s already stolen all the girl’s clothes for mending and washing, so that all she has is a nightgown. Just to be on the safe side she’s also confiscated her boots. If you could call them boots. After a year of walking and not being very good quality in the first place means they’re more hole than boot.

“I don’t want to put you out,” Tripitaka says hesitantly.

“Do you see anyone else here?” Monica says, re-filling her cup of tea. “Now eat up.”

She has no intention of letting Tripitaka leave before she’s put back on some of that weight she’s lost. The girl had been skinny to start with and now she’s downright gaunt. It’s even more visible in the light of day, with her face clean and her hair properly combed. It makes Monica want to find Pigsy and give him a good hard whack with a frying pan. Monkey and Sandy she’d pegged as unreliable nitwits, but she’d really thought Pigsy had a solid head on his shoulders.

In the meantime she sets about ferreting out what happened. Tripitaka is reluctant to talk about why she left, but she’ll discuss prior events willingly enough. Monica learns that the group of four made it all the way to the Jade Mountain, where together they defeated a demon lord and freed a bunch of gods from captivity. It’s a long and complicated story involving lost languages and shaman and faceless monsters, so Tripitaka has to go back and explain a lot of things for context.

“…so these demons just helped you?” Monica says in confusion.

“Font Demons. And no, not really. I used the hair the gods gave me to compel them.” Tripitaka pauses as if some troubling thought had occurred to her. “I didn’t think about that, that they didn’t have a choice.”

Monica thinks that it’s only fair since demons haven’t given anyone much of a choice in five hundred years and says so. Tripitaka hums in vague acknowledgement before continuing.

“Anyway, after that we journeyed west to find the rest of the sacred scrolls.”

“And then?”

Tripitaka shrugs. “We separated. I came back here. I assume they went on. That’s all.”

“That’s not much of ending, girl. You should polish it up.”

“Polish it up?”

“In your writings. I saw them in your pack, when I took your laundry. Are you writing down your adventures?”

Tripitaka’s face closes off. “No, that’s something… private. A kind of diary.”

Sensing she’s come to the limit of what Tripitaka will say, Monica eases off. “Well, then. Keep up with it. You never know what you might come back to later.”

* * *

She can’t spend the whole day fussing over the girl – she has a business to run. So she gives Tripitaka some mending to do and parks her in the corner of the kitchen out of the way. The cook thinks she’s too skinny and keeps trying to feed her tit-bits whenever he thinks Monica can't see. Any girl who's not plump is thin to Jora's mind (his own daughters are curvy like ripe plums) and in this case Monica is inclined to agree.

Monica focuses on her customers, who’ve become even rowdier since Locke left town. She’s reluctant to say anything good about their former ruler, but one thing Locke had done was keep the brigands and mercenaries in line. No one trashed her town or broke her stuff without paying for it. These days, it’s everything the town guard can do to keep things from getting out of hand. Of course, since now people’s money isn’t going straight into Locke’s pocket, hopefully it’s just a matter of time until the numbers of desperate outlaws decrease.

Just a matter of time, Monica reminds herself after the third broken plate. 

“Right,” she says, slapping the bill on the rowdiest table. “Who’s paying then?”

 The biggest mercenary scowls at the figure. “This is for lunch?”

 “Lunch plus the two cups, one plate and large soup bowl you broke. And the cutlery that this gentleman here is hiding in his beard.” She gestures at the red-headed thief, who blushes nearly as bright as his hair.

 The mercenary pushes the bill away. “I’m not paying this.”

 “I don’t particularly care which one of you pays it, so long as someone does.” 

Later she’ll curse herself for not paying attention, when one of the mercenary’s friends shoves her from behind. There are hoots of laughter as beer spills all down her front and she’s just drawing breath to yell when someone hits the floor behind her with a thump. 

When she turns around, the man who shoved her is on the ground, his arm twisted to a painful-looking position by a half-starved girl with a scarred cheek.

“Are you alright?” Tripitaka says to Monica. “I saw him push you.”

“Fine,” Monica says, a little dazed. Not so much by the violence as the direction it’s coming from. Beneath Tripitaka, the mercenary curses and writhes, then goes very still as she twists his arm a little more.

“You should lie still,” she advises him. “Much more pressure and it will pop your arm out of the socket.” Her tone is kind, as if she’s offering up some friendly advice. Her grip is casual, no sign of any strain or shaking.

The tavern has gone silent, arrested by the sight of a man effortlessly pinned by a girl half his size in a nightgown. Then the first mercenary gives a deep belly laugh and dumps a bag of coins on the table. “For the show,” he says.

* * *

Monica waits until they’ve cleaned up and the disruptive guests departed before dragging the girl out back.

“Since when can you fight?” She demands.

“A while.” When Monica arcs an eyebrow at that uninformative answer, Tripitaka relents grudgingly. “The others taught me some stuff. Pigsy said he was tired of me getting kidnapped all the time.” 

“That happen a lot?” 

“A few times. But they got themselves kidnapped too, and I rescued them, so really it evens out.” She says it in the tone of a well-worn argument.

“Well then.” Monica smirks. “Looks like you’ve just got yourself a job, girlie.”

* * *

Word spreads quickly of Monica’s new bouncer. The tiny little girl with the moon-spade, who can break up a brawl like prying apart mewling kittens. Actually, as Tripitaka says, kittens would be a lot harder because they’d be too adorable to smack. Mercenaries, not so much.

Monica gives her a chair by the entrance, where she spends most of her time reading or darning, the moon-spade resting against the wall. When she has to get up, though, it’s in the blink of an eye and there’ll be a customer on the ground wondering what the hell just happened. Some test her on purpose, but after she throws the first few out the door, things settle down and she becomes more or less part of the furniture.

Monica also takes it as an excuse to get the girl new clothes; boy’s tunic and pants, loose-fitting and easy to move in, solid boots like the town guard wear. She half expects Tripitaka to cut her hair short again, but all she does is clip off the split ends and start braiding it. Once she’s gotten Monica to teach her how to braid anyway.

“How can you have gone your whole life without braiding?” Monica says in disbelief, after the first disastrous attempt.

“I was raised by a man and after that, I kept my hair short.” Tripitaka starts combing out the tangle she created. “I’m not sure Sandy even brushes her hair and Monkey –” She stops as she always does when Monkey comes up.

Monica is starting to suspect that Monkey is at the heart of this mess. A romance gone wrong perhaps? They’re both young and foolish; the kind of age where a broken heart seems like the end of the world. Or at least Tripitaka is; Monic has no idea what age Monkey, or how it would correspond to human development. Not _that_ old, going by his behaviour.

Of course that theory, as nice as it is, doesn’t take into account the nasty scar on Tripitaka’s face. That scar worries Monica, more than anything else. It doesn’t look like the kind of scar from an accident, or even self-inflicted. It looks like the kind that comes from being attacked with an objective to cripple or kill. And it is the one subject that Tripitaka completely shuts down on, refusing to answer any questions and once actually walking away from Monica and not coming back until sunset. Monica had taken the hint and let it go.

She knows that Tripitaka goes out at night, wandering the town with her moon-spade like a lost shade. Once she sees her at the monastery, head bowed as she speaks to the head monk who looks at the girl with an expression somewhere between anger and compassion, and a strange wariness.

* * *

It’s a surprise to look up oneday and realise that Tripitaka has been in Pallawa for nearly a month.

“Have you given any thought about what you’re going to do?” Monica asks her. The common room is relatively quiet for once, so Tripitaka’s having her lunch out back in the kitchen.

“What do you mean?”

“With the rest of your life, now that you’ve given up on this quest business.”

Tripitaka frowns, looking down at her bowl. “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it. What would I do?”

“Lots of things. Get married. Become a soldier. Join a nunnery. Start your own tavern – not in Pallawa, of course.” Monica flicks Tripitaka with the corner of her apron, who smiles a little.

“I suppose I’d like to teach,” she says after a moment. “The Scholar taught me so much. I didn’t realise how privileged I was, to learn it.”

“Not a bad idea. You could apply at the school.”

“I could.” Tripitaka thinks about it. “I don’t know. Me, teaching children. It seems wrong.”

“Why?”

A shrug, which Monica knows by now to be Tripitaka’s tell that she’s, if not outright lying, then evading the real truth. “Well, you know, I’m not very respectable. The orphan girl who posed as a boy and ran away with three gods, and now works in a tavern beating up drunks.”

“This is Pallawa, girl. We can’t be that fussy.” Monica look through the curtains and glimpses someone coming in the front door of the tavern. “New customers. No, you finish your lunch. I’ve got it.” 

Tripitaka nods, turning her attention to her noodles. “Call me if you need me.”

Monica dries her hands on a dish towel and sweeps through the curtains.

“Welcome to Monica’s. What can I–” She stops. “ _You_.”

Pigsy looks a bit taken aback by her tone. “Hi, Monica. Long time, no see?” Behind him, Sandy is smiling like she’d been told it was polite but was a little uncertain of the meaning, while the Monkey King – still wearing that stupid crown – folds his arms with an amused smirk.

Monica doesn’t hesitate. “Get out.”

Pigsy blinks. “Um, if this is about the tab –”

“I said get the hell out.” Monica reaches back and grabs her club from inside the kitchen. She makes sure to raise her voice so it can be heard by everyone in the tavern, especially out back. “What kind of scum abandons a teenage girl in the middle of nowhere by herself?”

Pigsy’s face goes blank in surprise, and Sandy looks up sharply. “You know about that?”

“She came through here, a few weeks back, told me all about it.”

Monkey’s smirk has disappeared completely and he steps forward urgently. “Where did she go? Where is she now?”

“None of your damn business, that’s where.” Monica looks him in the eye and spits out the barb she’s been saving up the last month. “You ought to be ashamed. She left here happy and whole and well-fed. She came back here a shadow of herself.”

Monkey flinches as if he’d been slapped.

Pigsy steps in. “Now, Monica –”

“Don’t you ‘Monica’ me! I expected hair-brained idiocy from these two fools.” She gestures at Monkey and Sandy, the latter of whom looks as if she’s trying to decide if she’s been insulted or not. “I never expected it from you.”

“Look, it’s complicated. What’s important is that we find her as soon as possible.”

“We’ve come all the way from Toora,” Sandy interjects. “Can you at least tell us which way she went?”

Monica narrows her eye, trying to gage the god’s sincerity. On the one hand, they had come all this way looking for Tripitaka. On the other, she’d clearly left them for a reason. And there is that scar to consider…

Behind her, something crashes in the kitchen.

_Shit._

“What was that?” Monkey says, peering past her. 

“Bloody kitchen hand,” Monica says, moving to block his line of sight. “Butter fingers, all of them.” He frowns at her, the wheels turning. He’s not stupid, Monkey, no matter how much he acts like it sometimes.

Then Sandy whispers: “Monkey.” She’s over by the door, reverently picking up Tripitaka’s moon-spade from its customary resting place next to the chair. She holds it out, eyes glimmering with tears. “ _Wet ash_.”

It means nothing to Monica, but it has some significance to Monkey. Startled realisation and a fierce joy sweep across his face, and then he darts around Monica, lunging through the curtains into the kitchen. There’s a yelp and another crash and shouting.

“What are you _doing_?” Monica yells, charging after him.

She shoves through the curtains to find Tripitaka climbed halfway out the window and Monkey trying to drag her back inside. Since he should be more than strong enough to pull her in effortlessly, Monica can only assume he’s distracted by Jora, who’s hitting him with the fry pan and shouting: “Get off her, you perverted bastard!”

“Ow!” Monkey tries to defend himself from the cook's onslaught with a raised arm. “Ow! Stop that!” He sounds more annoyed than pained, and hasn’t let go of Tripitaka’s legs, despite how she wriggles. “Tripitaka, I’ve come a really long way – ow! – and you won’t even stop and – ow!”

“Let me go, Monkey!” She snarls. “I know how this ends!” 

“No, you don’t, that’s the – ow! Will you stop that!” He glares at Jora, who just hits him again.

“Lecher! Depraved deviant!”

Monkey huffs up in offence – “I am not!” – and nearly loses his grip on Tripitaka, who squirms like an eel and is nearly out the window before he lunges and catches her ankle. “Tripitaka,” he pants as the window-frame creaks alarmingly. “This is ridiculous. I’m not going to hurt you. Just come inside and we’ll talk – ”

“We already talked!” Her free foot catches him in the face, and even though Jora’s cast-iron frying pan hadn’t so much as put a dent in his perfectly mussed hair, the force of Tripitaka's kick makes Monkey lose his grip and fall on his backside with a thump.

“ _Ow_ ,” he says, sounding like he meant it for the first time as he gingerly touches his cheek. Monica’s attention, however, is caught by the girl who’s stopped in the window like she can’t decide whether to keep going or stop to check he’s okay.

The girl whose eyes are _glowing red_ like the heart of a furnace.

Abruptly everything about Tripitaka – all the strange things about her since she returned – come together with a resounding ‘click’. Why she left the quest, her ability to curb-stomp experienced mercenaries, even the odd looks the monks give her…

“You’re a demon,” Monica blurts out.

Tripitaka flinches, and that glow blinks out, leaving nothing more than a teenage girl who looks like she’s about to cry. She gives Monica a miserable look, then scrambles out the window and is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.”  
> ― C.G. Jung 
> 
> This fic builds on an idea I put forward in another fic "the song nobody knows". 
> 
> And to be perfectly clear - I love Tripitaka with short hair. Right at the moment she's in crisis and trying to figure out who she is, and her hair is a symbol of that. So long hair for the moment.


	2. Chapter 2

BEFORE: 

Tripitaka’s time on the quest ended in a little village called Toora. If Tripitaka had any idea what was coming, she’d have sided with Monkey when he and Pigsy stood arguing on the road outside the village gates.

“It’s just a silly tradition,” Pigsy said patiently.

“Exactly,” Monkey shot back. “I’m not doing it.”

“Monkey, everyone who goes through Toora has to take part. It’s–”

“Tradition. Yes, I heard. I’m still not drinking some disgusting slop just to be allowed to walk through their stupid village. We’ll find another way round.”

“Going around is a two week walk!”

Tripitaka was playing cards with Sandy, waiting for Monkey to give in. They all knew he would, probably even Monkey by this stage. The village was circled on one side by sheer cliffs and the other by a surging river. Technically they could fly over two at a time with Monkey’s cloud, but that would leave at least one of them alone for a long time in foreign territory. Monkey was just being stubborn because he didn’t like being backed into a corner. 

“It’s not that bad, Monkey,” Sandy said, peering at her cards distractedly. “It’s rather smart, actually. Using potions to identify demons.”

“One, how do you know it works? And two, what happens if they do identify a demon? It’ll just burn the village to the ground and carry on.”

“The village has survived this long. I imagine they know what they’re doing.”

“Unless they’re just poisoning travellers and stealing their stuff. Did you think of that?”

Tripitaka picked a card from the pile. “I could –” She started to say, only for Monkey to point a finger at her before she’d even finished speaking.

“You’re _not_ volunteering to go first. Don’t even bother.”

“That wasn’t what I was going to say,” she lied. “I meant, what if we made them drink it too? As a show of good faith.”

Monkey’s eyes narrowed speculatively. “We make them suffer their own stupid test. That’s very devious of you, Tripitaka. I like it.”

“Would they agree to that?” Sandy said curiously.

“It’s a pretty reasonable request,” Pigsy said, probably seeing an end to the arguing. “If they refuse, we’ll know something is wrong.”

“And start busting heads.” Monkey perked up at the idea.

By mutual consent, the other three got moving before he changed his mind again. Sandy and Tripitaka packed up the cards – just as Tripitaka got a good hand too, worst of luck – and they all trudged down over to the village gate where the guards were getting increasingly antsy.

“We’ll drink your slo– potion,” Monkey told them. “But we want to see someone else drink it first.”

The guards visibly relaxed at the news. “That’s fair enough,” said one. “I’ll tell the witchdoctor.”

“Witch?” Pigsy blurted out. “Wait, nobody said anything about witches –” Tripitaka rolled her eyes and dragged him inside the city just as the gates rumbled closed.

Inside, the village had more people than she was expecting, the houses crammed in on top of each other like bricks, with little mazes of ladders leading up and down. The high walls surrounding the village were manned by guards carrying wearing rusty armour that looked like it had been passed down from their grandfather to the tenth generation. No one looked at the four visitors, or tried to talk to them, just carried on their own way with their heads down. (It didn’t look like a very happy place, Tripitaka privately thought, for all that it was supposedly demon free.)

The witchdoctor's workroom was shadowy and mysterious, though it would have been a lot more mysterious if Tripitaka couldn't see the jars on the shelf clearly labelled with things like "for female troubles - take two" or "internal application only". The witchdoctor was a faintly unsettling-looking woman with blonde hair so light that her eyelashes were near invisible, while her eyebrows had either fallen out or been shaved off. 

“The recipe was handed down to me by my mother,” she said in a dreamy voice as she stirred a potion of what (in fairness to Monkey) was best described as disgusting slop. “And her mother before that, all the way back to my ancestor who served the god known as the Alchemist...”

“Never heard of him,” Monkey interrupted.

“I have,” Pigsy said. “Thought he died in the demon uprising. He did like messing around with potions now that I think about it – set fire to himself a few times. And the Jade Mountain too before he got himself kicked out.”

“How did he set fire to a mountain?” Sandy asked interestedly, and Tripitaka suspected from the witchdoctor’s annoyed expression they’d gotten off track. That’s what came of trying to awe or mystify gods; they know the inner workings of divinity too well to care.

“The potion?” Tripitaka said and the witchdoctor continued with a grateful look.

“It will not affect a human or god. A demon, however, it will reveal within a matter of moments.”

“Right before the demon kills you,” Monkey pointed out.

The witchdoctor shook her head. “My ancestors brewed it well. The demon will be helpless.” She gestured at the shelf behind her. “These are the weapons of past demons we’ve found.”

Tripitaka went over for a closer look. It was a nasty assortment of weapons; daggers and sword, hooks and maces, and one innocent looking blow-dart. Impressive as a minor armoury, but nothing to prove they’d once been owned by demons.

Monkey leaned past Tripitaka’s shoulder to pick up a dagger. He put it back hurriedly, wiping his hands on his pants. “They were demons alright.”

“How can you tell?”

“Bond-weapons,” he said, as if this explained everything. Maybe to gods it did.

Sandy noticed Tripitaka’s confusion and clarified: “A demon’s bond-weapon contains part of its power. Even if the demon is destroyed, some trace will linger. We can sense it by touch.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Tripitaka said, understanding. “You mean like Monkey’s staff, or your scythe.”

There was an awkward pause, long enough to make her realise she’d said the wrong thing. “…similar,” Sandy said after a moment. “But you can tell the difference with bond-weapons of gods.” 

“Gods are sort of heavy,” Monkey said, rubbing his fingers together. “Like the air before it rains? At least that’s how it is for me. Demons are like a mouthful of blood.”

Sandy shook her head. “I always found gods sweet,” she said. “Demons taste bitter. Like wet ash.”

“Huh. I suppose it could be worse. There was one guy, back at the Academy, who insisted touching demon bond-weapons was like biting into a lemon…”

Pigsy for once wasn’t taking part in the discussion. He was looking at the wall of weapons with a strange expression. “You kill all the demons you find?” He said in a difficult-to-read tone.

 “What else would one do with a demon?” The witchdoctor set the pot on the table with a thump. “Potion’s ready. Who’s first?”

“You,” Monkey said pointedly, and the woman shrugged, getting out a cup. She downed half without any ill-effects, so Monkey reluctantly drank next. He frowned at the taste, shrugged and passed it onto Sandy, who drank without incident and passed it to Pigsy.

“Kind of weedy,” Pigsy remarked with a grimace, and handed it to Tripitaka. She sniffed at it, and immediately regretted it. The odour was _foul_. Like something rotting, with the faintest hint of fecund sweetness that lingered at the back of her throat and nearly triggered a gag reflex. It was bad enough to make her think that a two week walk wasn’t such a bad idea.

Still, it would be silly to back out now. The others were all watching expectantly and no way was she giving Monkey more fodder to tease her about being a ‘weak little human’, especially when she was one of the people arguing for this compromise in the first place.

If she’d had any inkling of what was coming, she might have hesitated, might have paused to savour these last few moments of blissful ignorance.

But because the Scholar never told her, she gulped the potion straight down.

* * *

NOW:

Tripitaka runs. She knows she has perhaps a minute, if that, before Monkey's on her tail. 

If he follows her on foot, he’ll never catch her. She knows the city better than he does, knows the tricky shortcuts and pathways to get away unseen. However, if he's smart (and Monkey _is_ smart, even if he doesn’t always act like it) he'll use his cloud and catch her easily. 

She swiftly scales a wall and slides down the adjoining roof, jumping the last few meters to the ground and surprising a couple of labourers eating lunch. 

"Sorry," she says, and keeps running. It constantly surprises her how easily her body adapts now. Falls that should leave her with broken bones or hits that should leave her crying on the ground, she barely notices. She's cautious of testing the exact extent of her resilience, but she suspects she hasn't even approached the limit of what she can do. (No wonder demons were always so arrogant; if this is how they felt _all the time_ ).

On the street, there are people around but not enough of a crowd to easily blend into. She slows so that she's walking quickly, but not running, through the crowd. A few people give her curious looks, but most ignore her. Monica's odd little bouncer is old news.  She’s trying to decide between the sewers or talking her way into a house when she sees a group of veiled women ahead and hurries to catch up.

"Lila?" She calls out, hoping she's recognised the right person under the covering. It's always embarrassing when they come into the tavern and she addresses one with the name of another. 

She's got it right this time, because the woman turns and smiles behind her veil, the lines at the corners of her eyes crinkling up. "Tripitaka, how lovely to see you. Did Monica give you the day off?" A beat as she studies her more closely. "Is something wrong?" 

Tripitaka nods. "There's a man, he's chasing me." 

Understanding flashes across the woman's eyes. She calls to her friends and they cluster about Tripitaka. Someone produces a spare veil and puts it over her, draping it to hide her face. It only takes a few seconds, but that’s all they have before Monkey charges down the street, followed by Sandy, then by a panting Pigsy. Tripitaka hopes they will go straight past, but Pigsy slows and stops, bending over to catch his breath. 

"Are you sure she went this way?" He pants.  

"Yes!" Monkey says impatiently from the corner. "Now come on." 

"I don't know about chasing a woman who climbed out a window to get away from you." 

"It does seem questionable," Sandy agrees, stopping beside Pigsy.

Monkey glares at her. "So we should just give up?" 

"Oh no, we have to find her. I just agree with Pigsy that appearance-wise, it doesn't look very good." 

Tripitaka bites the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. Or crying. She's not sure which. The gods are only a few body-lengths away, ignoring the group of veiled women moving down the street. From the corner of her eye she can see the back of Sandy’s head, scythe in one hand, a staff in the other. 

Except that's not a staff. That's Tripitaka's moon-spade. 

Tripitaka sucks in a sharp breath. If it weren't for Lila's hand squeezing her wrist, she might have shoved through the women and shouted _"That's mine!"_ It's an irrational impulse, born of real fear, like seeing a fragile irreplaceable transcript in careless hands. She hasn't let the moon-spade get more than twenty feet from her since she got it, though - much like her body - she suspects that she has yet to hit her real limit. Seeing it in the hands of a god is terrifying, like missing a step on a bridge and looking down into a void.

"Besides," Sandy is saying. "It's not like she's going anywhere. We have her bond-weapon.”  

"... right," Monkey says after a moment. "Obviously. She'll be coming back for that." 

"You forgot about it, didn't you," Pigsy says dryly. 

" _No._ I just wanted to catch her while we had the chance." 

"You forgot."  

"I did not forget - "

Their bickering fades into the distance as the women turn the corner out of sight They keep walking and it's not until a minute has passed that Lila says quietly: "Aren’t those the three gods you left town with a while back?” 

“Yes.” Tripitaka hesitates, aware that her actions are not in keeping with her words and adds: "It's complicated."  

"It always is, with gods." Thankfully Lila seems disinclined to ask any more questions on the topic.

Now that Tripitaka’s fear is fading into manageable realms, she feels a slow-building anger. The three gods know _exactly_ what the moon-spade is to her and they expect to use it to lure her in like a fish on a line. Monkey was the one who told her to leave in the first place! He’d just dumped her on the side of the road and told her in a few brusque words the new way of things.  She'd been in shock at first, unable to believe what was happening, then hurt, then angry. Only recently has she managed a tentative sort of gratitude for his honesty, because he might have been cruel, but he'd been absolutely correct. There is only one way things end between gods and demons.

Yet here he is - against his own advice! - stomping all over the life she'd managed to build for herself. Monica's definitely not going to want her to come back to work after this. Knowing the tavern, word will get round quickly and soon everyone in Pallawa will know the ugly truth about Tripitaka. 

That thought distracts her so much she nearly misses the turn-off to the monastery. "I'm going this way," she says, removing the veil and handing it back. She hesitates, thinking what Lila might hear over the next few days, what she might think, and adds: "Whatever you hear, you were never in any danger. I promise." 

Lila's eyebrows rise. "Dramatic, aren't you," she says, in a way that reminds Tripitaka of Monica (Pallawa people tend to be a dryly sarcastic lot, by nature, which can be deeply confusing or deeply funny, or both). "You'll have to tell me what this was all about." 

"Oneday," Tripitaka agrees, meaning never. She doubts Lila will want a demon sitting in her kitchen gossiping over tea and snacks.  

She walks down the narrow little side-street and knocks on the freshly painted door (the monastery’s doing better, now that people have money to spare for donations and that Locke's goons aren’t around to glare menacingly at stuff being given away to people that aren't Locke). After a moment the door opens and a young monk opens the door. His smile falters when he sees her. 

"Tripitaka. We weren't expecting you today." 

"Something's happened," she says. "May I come in?" 

He hesitates a beat, then says “Of course," and opens the door wider to let her through.

* * *

The head of the monastery hears her out over tea. He always serves tea when Tripitaka visits; the same cheap, bitter leaf that all the monks drink. The first time he served it to her she’d taken one sip and burst into tears, because it was the same leaf the Scholar used to favour. Even now, the familiar sharp smell and bitter taste makes her chest tight. She has to stop and clear her throat several times as she explains what happened in the tavern.

“You always do bring trouble to our doorstep,” the monk remarks dryly once she has finished. Tripitaka draws breath to apologise, but he adds: “At least this kind is not likely to rebound on us. You’re certain the Monkey King was after you?”

“I’m sure. He said he came all the way from Toora to find me.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” The monk pauses delicately before adding: “You are aware we cannot offer shelter? Monks by our vows are forbidden to lie to gods. If they come here, we cannot lie to them.”

Disappointment curdles in Tripitaka’s chest.

“Not even for a few hours?” She tries not to sound like she’s begging. “Just until nightfall. That’s all I would need, to get through the city unseen.”

“There is no other place you can go?”

“Pigsy knows all the places in the city to hide, Sandy knows the places below. And I can’t leave the city without getting my bond-weapon back.” She picks up her cup and notices that her fingers are trembling ever so slightly, making the tea shiver. She puts it back down again before she spills it. “I’ll – I’ll understand if you say no. I’ll think of something.”

The monk re-fills his own cup slowly. “I suppose a monastery is the last place one would look for a demon,” he says thoughtfully, and Tripitaka tries not to flinch at the word. “Just until nightfall you said?”

“That’s all I need,” she promises recklessly. “I have a plan.”

She doesn’t, actually, but she can come up with something before nightfall. Her best plans have been ones she made up as she went.

“Very well then. Remember if the gods do come, we cannot refuse them entry and we cannot lie to them.”

“I understand,” she says, near dizzy with relief. “I wouldn’t expect you to.”

The monk's expression softens ever so slightly. “Your arrival is somewhat timely,” he says. “I was about to send a messenger to the tavern. We found another translation by the Scholar.” 

He's chosen his topic well. The Scholar's work is the only possible subject that could have distracted her from her troubles. “Really?" She says excitedly. "What is it about?”

“It seems to be a philosophical debate between two gods about the nature of leadership. We believe the original is over a thousand years old. Would you like to see?”  

They go out back to the library. One of the more pleasant discoveries of coming back to Pallawa was that Monkey’s release had validated the Scholar’s work. No longer was it considered the mad ideas of a failed monk but the far-seeing perspective of a man ahead of his time. The monks had spent the past year digging up everything they could on his work; books he’d studied in his youth, the treatise he’d written that ultimately got him kicked out, even correspondence exchanged with old friends.

The monk leads her over to a table in the corner, where a scroll is laid out. It’s in the Scholar’s careful handwriting and Tripitaka blinks her eyes rapidly to dry them. It wouldn’t do to damage the paper with salt water.

“Was this one he sent to you?” She asks. The Scholar had sent few scrolls to the monastery early on, when he was trying to convince them of his ideas. He’d given up after a few years though, so there weren’t many. 

“No, this was from before he left. One of the last he was working on – see how the last part is completed by someone else?”

“I see.” Tripitaka scans the text. “I know this; the Scholar owned a copy. But this one’s different.”

“Which part?”

“All of it. The Scholar’s part and the other’s part. See the words ‘glowing head’? That’s supposed to be ‘golden crown’.”

The monk leans over. “Are you sure?” 

“Positive. The translation I know wasn’t a debate, it was a subordinate chastising a proud king. See that bit about being blind? That’s not a metaphor, that’s a threat if he doesn’t be silent.”

“My word…” The head monk has the same expression the Scholar used to get, when some small obscure change altered the entire context of a manuscript. Words are the pivot on which the world turns, he used to say, and he wasn't wrong. “That means it's even older than we thought. It could be from the time of the god-kings. What about these references to the children of the gods. Do you know what that means?”

“Sorry.” Triptaka shook her head. “The Scholar and I used to talk about it. We never had any answers. They might not even have existed. They could have been a literary construct.”

“Always possible, with philosophy. One never knows if the author is being literal or metaphoric.” The monk sighs. “It will be frustrating, not having you on hand to offer these insights.” 

Tripitaka opens her mouth to ask where she’ll be going, then it occurs to her that he's right; she can’t stay in Pallawa. Even if she retrieves her bond-weapon and vanishes into the woods to wait the gods out, the town won’t want a demon living here, not after Locke.

“Yes,” she says after a moment, throat tight. “I suppose it will be.”

* * *

She spends the afternoon napping. Another lesson learned the hard way on the road; if there’s nothing else you can do, rest. You never know when you'll get another opportunity. 

A monk wakes her just as the town bell is tolling to signal that the city gates are closing. The shadows are long, daylight shining red-gold through the window.

“The head monk is leading prayer,” the young monk says, setting down a tray. “But he said you should eat before you go.”

Tripitaka looks at the simple food, the pot of hot tea, and says sincerely: “Thank you.” She owes the monks so much, not just for those who’d died defending her from the Font Demon, but for their silence on her true nature. When she confessed it to the head monk, in a desperate hope he might know the Scholar’s reasoning, she’d fully expected him to tell everyone in Pallawa. That he had not is a kindness she has no idea how to repay.

She eats quickly and is at the monastery door just as the last of the sunlight is disappearing. The young monk opens it for her.

“Good luck,” he says. “You’ll need it, with the Monkey King.”

The door clunks closed behind her, leaving her alone in a dark alley. She waits a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, then pulls her hood up and starts walking.


	3. Chapter 3

BEFORE

She found the dead monk perhaps two weeks after Toora.

He was lying by the side of the road, robes stained with mud and dried blood. By the state of him he’d only been dead a day or so. His bags had been ransacked and everything not worth stealing trodden into the muck.

Looking down at him, Tripitaka found herself crying for the first time since leaving the quest. She sobbed in great heaving gulps and wasn't sure if she was mourning herself or the poor nameless man who'd died here far from home. Eventually she started digging. At first scraping out handfuls of dirt with her fingers, then shoveling with a moon-spade she found dumped in the grass by the side of the road. It was the only part of the monk’s belongings still intact. By the scuff marks, the killers had kicked it around a bit, trying to break it, then given up when it didn’t yield easily. 

Even with the spade it took her the rest of the afternoon to dig a deep enough hole. It was nearly evening when she straightened the dead monk's clothes and set about finding a way to lower him in without compromising any more of his dignity. She went to lift his shoulders and nearly staggered at how _easy_ it was. After an afternoon of digging, her muscles should be water. She should be dead on her feet, barely able to raise the moon-spade, let alone a man twice her weight. But lifting him was no more effort than lifting a child. (In any other circumstances she would have put more thought into what that meant.) 

At the bottom of the grave, she covered his face and said the prayers. She wasn’t sure if they meant anything coming from her, but someone should say them. 

"Good-bye," she said at last, laying a hand on his cloth-covered brow. “Good-bye, Tripitaka.” It felt right to give the name back, even if it wasn’t to the right monk. He deserved it more than she did.

Then she climbed out of the grave and started shoveling dirt in.

It was completely dark by the time she was done and she was too tired and despondent to continue, even if she’d wanted to walk in the dark. She gathered wood and lit a fire, then sat staring into the flames, thinking about Gaxin and the other monks who'd died protecting her. It all seemed horribly ironic now; a bad joke with a tasteless punchline. 

She didn’t realise she wasn’t alone until the snap of a twig made her look up. A man and woman were standing at the edge of the firelight. 

“Hello there,” said the man, smiling. “Mind if we share your fire?" 

It wasn’t a reassuring smile. Nor did Tripitaka think it was it meant to be. If they were honest travelers they'd have called out from a distance, letting her know of their presence before they came close. It was common courtesy and common sense (no one wanted to be struck down by a startled stranger mistaking you for a bandit). Going by that and their swords, these were probably the people who killed the monk. 

"Well?" The man said when Tripitaka hadn’t responded. 

"If you like,” she said after a moment. 

The man and woman settled on the opposite side of the fire. Neither made any pretence of making themselves comfortable. They watched her like cats watching a mouse. All that was missing were the twitching tails. 

"Looks like you've been busy," the woman remarked, nodding at the dirt-covered spade. "That dead monk, was it?" 

Tripitaka drew the moon-spade closer to her and the man sniggered.

"Be nice. That dead monk was probably his friend. All these monks are brothers in spirit, isn't that right?" 

"I'm not a monk," Tripitaka said quietly.

"Oh? What are you then?" 

She leaned forward to poke the fire with a stick. "I'm a demon.”

It was the first time she'd said the words out loud. They sounded strange. Distant. Like they were floating in the air, not really part of her.

“You?” The woman scoffed. “A demon?” 

“I didn’t know until recently,” Tripitaka explained, slowly stirring the hot coals. "I feel like I should have, in hindsight.”

It felt good to admit out loud. She’d had a lot of time to think, these past two weeks. Mostly about how many things - little oddities she’d noticed but not really thought about before - now suddenly made a lot more sense.

Like the Scholar’s evasiveness whenever she brought up the possibility of meeting the Monkey King. She'd never expected to join the quest (not back then) but she’d thought she’d at least get to stand in his presence. Maybe say hello or serve him tea. The Scholar, however, had always put her off with vague statements like “we’ll see how things pan out” or “there might not be time”. She’d thought he was preparing for the possibility of disappointment, in case he was wrong about the location. 

Now, in light of her true nature, it became clear he never intended to let her anywhere near Monkey. 

There were no words for how deep that wound ran. On the one hand, it meant the Scholar had been protecting her. On the other it meant he’d _known_ , probably for years, and he hadn’t said a word. What else had he lied about? Was this why her mother had left her? Did she even have a mother? Every new question provoked a dozen more, each one more bewildering and hurtful than the last. She wished he'd told her the truth. It would be better to know the answers than wallow in this painful confusion. 

"I can't tell if you're trying to scare us," the woman said slowly. "Or you're just crazy." 

The man was eyeing Tripitaka warily. "Maybe we should go. Never fuck with demons or crazy." 

"Grow a pair. You weren't so squeamish before." 

" _Look_ at him. He’s not scared of us." 

She wasn't, Tripitaka realised. She was tired and sweaty and her head hurt, but she wasn’t scared. What she was…

…was _angry_.

“Just go away,” she said, pressing her fingers to her temples, trying in relieve that growing sense of pressure. “Leave me alone.”

“See,” the woman said triumphantly. “Does that look like a demon to you?” She stood and drew her sword.

“I don’t know…” the man said uneasily.

“For fuck’s sake, it’s just a whiny little monk like the last one.” The woman stomped toward Tripitaka. “Grab his stuff, I’ll cut his –”

Tripitaka saw red. Literally. That pressure suddenly _burst_ inside her skull and she could dimly hear herself scream in agony as what felt like a river of fire ripped its way out of her. _So this is how it ends_ , part of her thought. Monkey was wrong. She was going to die here by the side of the road, with two very confused bandits for company. 

But even as the red light burst out of her, it was draining away, funneling through her hands into the moon-spade clenched between her fingers. She couldn't have let go if she wanted to. It was like water pouring downhill. It had to go somewhere, and the moon-spade was the only thing in reach that felt right. It seemed like forever before that red light faded to a trickle and stopped. Her breath was coming in gasps like she’d been crying or running. Her vision was blurry with tears, her fingers were cramping, and everything else felt like she’d been ripped open and stitched back together. The most awful kind of relief.

The man and woman were staring at her, open-mouthed. 

“Shit,” the man said. “You _are_ a demon.” He turned and ran off into the darkness.

"Come back, you coward!" The woman yelled. When he didn’t, she came at Tripitaka with her sword raised. "Some demon you are. Bet you can't even - "

One hit with the moon-spade sent the woman flying. Tripitaka was across the clearing before the woman had even finished tumbling across the grass, kicking the sword out of her grasp and pressing the spade to her throat. It was so easy, like suddenly grasping the nuance of a translation. She saw how to do it, so she could do it. “I _told_ you to leave me alone." 

The woman wet her lips nervously. "You want to make a name for yourself, right? That's what you demons always want. I can help, I'm good at that sort of thing." 

Tripitaka’s lip curled and she dug the spade in a little harder. "You're a lot of things. Good isn't one of them." 

If Tripitaka was a demon, she should be able to finish the kill. It was the smart thing to do. This woman had murdered a monk. She’d probably murdered others. She’d murder more if Tripitaka let her go. All Tripitaka had to do was lift the spade and bring it down hard. After all, what was a little blood on demon hands…

It wasn’t working.

The more Tripitaka tried to talk herself into it, the less she wanted to do it. Frustrated with herself, she withdrew the spade, drawing back a few steps as she tried to decide what to do next. What kind of useless demon couldn’t kill? 

The woman rolled over and curled up, whimpering. Tripitaka must have hit her harder than she thought. Maybe this was what Monkey meant when he teased her about being a fragile human.

Tripitaka laid down the moon-spade and knelt beside the woman. 

"Here," she said. “Let me –” She was surprised, both when the woman lunged at her with a dagger, and when she caught her wrist on reflex. The blade quivered an inch from her face. "I'm trying to _help_ you.”

"I don't need your help," the woman spat, wrenching free. "Demon bitch!" 

She ran off into the darkness. Tripitaka watched her go, then wearily picked up the moon-spade. That was when she realised something was different.

The scuff-marks were gone. The wood was the exact texture between smooth and grainy for her fingers to get a good grip. It even felt perfectly balanced in her hand. More than a good weapon; one made to the precise measurements for her height and build.

And something... relaxed. That was the only word she could find to describe it. Not the awful relief from before, where you weren't sure if you wanted to cry because it hurt or because it was finally hurting the right way. The comfortable kind of relief, like when your toes settled into shoes that fit you just right. 

It took her a second to realize what this must be.

* * *

NOW

The tavern is open and doing a thriving business. Tripitaka lingers in a shadowed alleyway, watching the customers come and go. She winces as someone is tossed out the doors. Looks like either Monica is in a bad mood, or she’s found herself a new bouncer already. 

Tripitaka can’t see any of the gods, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there. In fact, Tripitaka is certain at least one of them is. She can sense her bond-weapon inside – something she hadn’t known she could do until now, interesting – which means they're almost certainly expecting her. 

If only she could figure out that summoning trick of Pigsy’s, where he calls the rake to his hand. That would be very useful right now. Unfortunately, she suspects it’s an ability unique either to him or to gods because she’s never been able to make it work. 

She slips out of the alley while no one is looking and ducks into the little street alongside the tavern. This time of year, the shutters are closed to keep out the cold and the sound of laughter, music and loud voices are muffled. A window suddenly opens ahead of her and Tripitaka freezes as Monica leans out. It’s all she _can_ do, because any movement would immediately draw Monica’s eyes to her position. If she remains perfectly still, perhaps she’ll blend into the alley shadows.

She’s in luck, however. Monica is tossing a bucket of dirty water out into the gutter, paying no attention to her surroundings.

"...not fair," Monkey's voice says from inside the tavern.

"Life's not fair," Monica snaps over her shoulder. "For example, you barging in here making a mess - _again_ \- and scaring off the best bouncer I ever had isn't fair. What's fair is you taking her place until she comes back." 

"I should be out there with Pigsy and Sandy. We can cover more ground." 

"Pigsy and Sandy have lived here for years. They can dig her out a lot faster than you can, and frankly if I were Tripitaka, I wouldn't come within ten miles of you after that stunt in the kitchen." 

"I told you that was –" The window closes, shutting off their voices. 

Tripitaka breathes out, heart thumping. That had been too close. At least she now knows that Pigsy and Sandy aren’t here, just Monkey. That makes things easier. She knows _exactly_ how to distract him. 

She creeps back the way she'd come and watches the street until she spots a familiar group of customers approaching. Already had a skinful or two by the way they laugh and shove each other, shouting crude suggestions at the houses they pass.

"Kortath," she says, slipping out to intercept them. They all stagger to a stop and their leader peers at her near-sightedly.

" _Tripitaka_ ," he says after a second, giving her a grin that bares rotting teeth. "I've been hearing all sort of interesting things about you today." 

"I can imagine. Anything in particular?" 

"I hear you screwed over three gods, and they're in town to collect."

"Is that all?" She keeps her expression disinterested. Kortath, she knows, won't give up if he knows he's scored a hit. He'll keep digging and digging, like a small boy picking the wings off flies.

That isn’t, however, the real reason Tripitaka dislikes him. She suspects that he and his buddies supplement their income by robbing travellers. They always come in with foreign coin, in amounts that don’t make sense for the traders they present themselves as. At best they're thieves. At worst, there’s a body or two buried somewhere. 

Precisely the type of lowlifes, in other words, who might lower themselves to deal with something like her. 

"Heard other stuff too,” Kortath says, still grinning and watching her for a reaction. “Heard you were a demon."

"Well.” She looks him straight in the eye. “They're not wrong."

Unfortunately she still hasn’t quite got the hang of the eye-glowing thing yet, so there’s an embarrassing moment where she’s just standing there looking at him funny.

Kortath snorts. “You should be careful what you say, someone might – _sonofabitch!"_

He jumps back as her eyes finally start glowing. His buddies murmur nervously among themselves. One of them reaches for his crossbow and freezes when Tripitaka _looks_ at him. She can’t keep the glow longer than a few seconds, but it’s more than enough to cow them into submission.

Such a grand achievement, she thinks bitterly as it fades. A handful of terrified humans. Maybe this was how Locke started, one distasteful but necessary step at a time. 

“I’m not here for you,” she says. “I just need a favour.”

Kortath swallows, loud enough to hear, then shakes his head. “No,” he says, surprising her. “ _No_. I’m not doing a demon any favours. Your kind put enough of my friends’ necks into nooses.”

Tripitaka's respect for him begrudgingly rises. Kortath might be a terrible human being, but he has the guts to say no to a demon that - so far as he knows - might react by ripping those same guts out. If more of humanity were like that, perhaps the demons would never have taken over. 

“That was Locke," she says. "Not me. Besides, you and I want the same thing.”

“Really? I’m thinking I want to tell those gods where you are and watch them make a mess out of you.”

“Sure, you could do that. See what happens.”

He's in for a surprise if he does manage to hand her over. Granted, she probably won't like whatever Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy have planned for her, but she highly doubts it would extend as far as killing her.

She'd finally had time to think about it in the monastery, once her initial panic was over. Monkey said they were here for her, which means they must have decided they couldn't leave her running around. Probably they intend to take her to Jade Mountain, where the other captive demons are being held.

Had this been floated as an option back when it first happened, she probably would have gone along with it. She'd been so deep in horror and grief that imprisonment might have looked like an answer. Even after returning to Pallawa, she might have given up without a fight. But since then she's figured out (largely thanks to Monica's utter lack of patience for self-pity) that her life doesn't have to be the nightmare she'd once thought. She has options, even if it's just living a quiet solitary life like the Scholar before her. 

Maybe oneday, if she starts feeling the impulse to rape and pillage, she'll turn herself in. But until then they'll have to drag her kicking and screaming very step of the way.

She softens her tone, tries to reason with Kortath. “Look, you don't want me here and I just want to get out of town as fast as possible. Why not help me just this once?”

Kortath sneers and starts to say something, but one of his buddies leans over to mutter in his ear. He hesitates, flicking a look at Tripitaka, then finally says grudgingly: "…what kind of favour?" 

She smiles in relief. "A distraction."

* * *

Monkey's knee is jiggling the chair again. He makes himself stop. Monica said if he let a barfight break out because he wasn't paying attention, she'd have his head. 

It's just hard to focus on the common room when Tripitaka is so _close_. Right within the same city, after months of near-misses and rumours that went nowhere. Forget trying to focus, it’s an effort not to run out the door looking for her.

A couple of customers enter, giving Monkey a curious look. “Tripitaka not in?” One of them says.

“Night off,” Monkey lies.

“Huh. Good for her.” They head to one of the tables where their friends wave them over and start whispering furtively, no doubt passing on the juicy gossip. Monkey’s jaw clenches.

The downside of finding Tripitaka is that apparently when you have a loud scene in a kitchen with thin walls and no door, sound tends to carry. And no amount of threats to beat people’s heads in will keep that gossip from spreading when it's about a demon. Probably the only reason it hasn’t spread across the city already is that most people don’t believe it yet.

It’s not what Monkey had intended when he ran into the kitchen. Even if he couldn't tell you exactly what he _did_ intend.

All that had been going through his head was that Tripitaka was finally within reach, after months of thinking she was starving or dead somewhere along the road. He’d shoved through the curtains and there she was, staring at him with huge eyes, a shattered bowl at her feet. About a dozen thoughts had run through his head – _she looked so thin, had she been eating properly, she grew her hair, how did she get that scar_ – but all of that was superfluous beside the fact that she was here and she was alive. 

He’d gone to fling his arms around her (okay so fine, yes, he sort of had an idea what he’d intended) except she’d shrieked and dived for the window, knocking over a pile of pots and pans in the process. And he’d panicked, because it was the first time he'd seen her in months and if she disappeared it might also be the last time. Only she was a lot stronger and squirmier than he was expecting, like going to scoop up a kitten and finding yourself with an armful of bobcat. The only saving grace of the situation was that she hadn’t decided to claw up his face – at least according to Pigsy, who had all sorts of horror stories about what you could expect from trying to make a female demon do something she’d made up her mind not to.

 _"All she did was kick you?"_ He'd said, poking at Monkey's black eye. _"Lucky. There must be something she likes about your ugly mug."_

Monkey had slapped his hand away. _"She's just upset about what I said in Toora. Once she's cooled down..."_

_"It's been four months.  I'm pretty sure this is her cooled down."_

Pigsy is both reassuringly and annoyingly calm about Tripitaka's new powers. He says most demons awaken around her age and the only surprising thing is it hadn't happened earlier, what with all the kidnappings and high-stress situations. Sandy is mostly fretting about the fact that Tripitaka had to go through her awakening alone. She keeps asking questions that Monkey doesn't want to think about. Do you think she understood what was happening? Did anyone help her? Was she scared?

It’s like a sharp bone caught between Monkey’s teeth, scraping his already raw guilt. If he’d been more careful, if he’d thought before he spoke, then Tripitaka wouldn’t have _had_ to go through it alone. She’d have been safe with three people who, if not demons themselves, at least knew what to do and expect. More or less, anyway. 

He darts a furtive glance at the moon-spade, leaning against the wall beside him.

To say he was surprised by her choice of bond-weapon would be an understatement. He’s never met a demon that didn’t go for a blade; swords and daggers and the like. A monk’s pacifist staff is more like... well, more like something a god would choose. He still hasn’t been able to bring himself to touch it, which makes him the only one. Sandy was carrying it about all afternoon and Pigsy picked it up once, turning it over thoughtfully between his hands before putting it back down. Neither of them had been visibly bothered by the taste. Maybe if you know what’s coming, it’s not so bad?

Monkey reaches out and, before he can lose his nerve, brushes his knuckles lightly along the haft.

It’s like a burst of fresh blood in the back of his mouth. He clenches his teeth against the gag reflex; it’s not _real_ blood, just a phantom flavour. Coppery and salty at the same time, with a distinct meaty undertone. It reminds him of a nosebleed. He holds on as long as he can before letting go, disappointed. He’s the Monkey King. He should be able to touch his friend’s bond-weapon without being nauseated by it.

Maybe it’s a matter of practise. 

He’s just reaching for the moon-spade again when a new group of customers swagger in the door.

"Oh look," one of them says. "It's the Monkey King. Fallen on hard times, oh Monkey King?" 

Monkey quickly folds his arms, glaring at them. "Table's to the left,” he says. 

"Just saying,” says their apparent spokesperson, a man with bad teeth. “If you need money, the brothel's always looking for help. Long flowing locks like that, you'd fit right in." 

"Funny. Either get in or get out." 

They laugh as if he’d made some joke, and Monkey’s fists clench. Monica will kill him if he makes another scene, he reminds himself. She’s already furious about the Tripitaka situation, she might just come after him with an axe if he makes a mess of her common room again.

Then one of the men looks at the Tripitaka’s moon-spade and says: “Hey, doesn’t that belong to that demon-bitch?”

“ _What did you just say?!_ ”

* * *

Tripitaka waits until the yelling and screaming has broken out before slipping around the back. Her plan is to dart through the kitchens while everyone's distracted, but then she runs straight into Monica. 

"Tripitaka!" The tavern keeper blurts, nearly dropping her tray. "Gods, you scared the life out of me!" 

"I'm not here to make trouble," Tripitaka says hastily. "I just came to get - "

"What were you thinking, running off like that without a word?" 

"- what?" 

"I thought you were freezing in the forest or huddling in a sewer somewhere." Monica dumps the tray to the side and storms over. "Are you alright?” She demands, grabbing Tripitaka's hands, turning them over to inspect for cuts or bruises, the same way she does after every bar fight. 

This is not how Tripitaka expected things to go. "You're not afraid?" She says slowly. 

"Of what?"

"Of me," Tripitaka says, feeling like they've missed a step. "Because I'm a demon, remember."

Monica cups Tripitaka's face in her hands.  "Girl, you couldn't scare a bird on your worst day," she says fiercely, and also a bit like she wants to smack you in the head for how dense you're being. Tripitaka's vision blurs and she has to scrub away a treacherous trickle of warmth, because how much _doesn’t_ she deserve that faith.

“I’m sorry,” she says, backing away. “I just came to get my moon-spade.”

“Tripitaka – ”

“I’m sorry,” Tripitaka says again and pushes through the curtains into the common room.

Only quick reflexes save her from a thrown plate that smashes on the doorframe behind her. It's not the first either, going by the broken shards all over the floor. Tripitaka feels a bit bad about that. She'll have to find a way to send some money back to Monica to pay for a new crockery cupboard, once she's safely out of town.

At least Monkey seems to be having a good time, throwing Kortath and his buddies around while plates and bowls and cups become projectiles. The more sensible customers have ducked behind furniture for shelter while the more stupid ones are standing back, beers in hand, to watch the show. Tripitaka has to drag one of them down behind a table before he’s brained by a soup dish.

“Oh hey, Tripitaka,” he says, in the unbothered way of the supremely drunk. “I thought you had the night off.”

To his credit, he doesn’t seem to have noticed she’s lying on top of him, more concerned with picking shards of pottery out of his beer. Tripitaka exasperatedly takes it off him and tips it out. “Don’t drink that.”

“Probably not a good idea,” he says agreeably. “Hey, is it true that you’re–”

“Stay down, Lano. And no more beer; you’re cut off for the night.”

She ignores his protest and crawls along the wall, using overturned tables to hide her approach from Monkey. 

Her moon-spade is in its customary position, leaning against the wall by the door. It’s so close she can _feel_ it like the warmth of a welcoming fire, or the delicious smell of a hot meal just out of reach. Unfortunately it's out in the open and there’s no more cover between them. 

She peers around the last table and decides that Monkey seems pretty well distracted, shoving a man’s face into a bowl of mashed potatoes. “…swear by the seven hells, I _ever_ hear those words come out of your mouth again, I will shove your head so far up your…”

That’s oddly angry for Monkey. He usually takes insults to his hair slightly better than that. Kortath and his buddies must be better at getting a rise than she thought. Or maybe what happened in the kitchen earlier today really pissed Monkey off and he’s been simmering all afternoon. Either way, she's better off not being here.

Tripitaka takes a deep steadying breath, shifting onto the balls of her feet. The moon-spade is only a few body-lengths away. Monkey is focused on his barfight. She’ll grab it and be out the door before he even knows she's there. Easy.

She stands up, just as someone shouts behind her.

“Hey, Tripitaka!” Lano is standing again, cheerfully oblivious as he waves at her in full view of the entire common room. “I know no more beer, but can I get a whiskey instead?”

_Shit._


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hah, I did it! This was one monster of a chapter, but I finally got there.

NOW:

Monkey whips around, and there Tripitaka is. Just standing frozen by the wall, her eyes huge and horrified.

“Tripitaka,” he breathes. He’d thought, given the debacle in the kitchen, it would be at least a few days before she was willing to talk to him. “You came back–”

 _Or maybe not_ , he amends as she bolts, snatching up her moon-spade on the way past. He barely manages to get to the door in time, slapping both hands on either side of the frame and blocking the entrance with his body.

“Wait, wait, just wait!”

Unfortunately he miscalculates the speed she’s going, they collide with an ‘oomph’ and he finds himself with armful of Tripitaka. Which is fun for about one second before she starts struggling wildly to get away. The kick to his shin would have broken bone if he were human.

“Ow, ow, ow! Okay, I’m letting go, I’m letting go -” He opens his arms and Tripitaka springs to a safe distance, spinning round to glare at him with an affronted expression.

 _Definitely_ a bobcat, he thinks wryly, rubbing his aching shin. Or a lynx. Some breed of wild cat that looked soft and sleek and pretty, and came with very nasty claws if you pissed it off. Which is annoying, because he is at the very least a majestic wolf. He should not be intimidated by an itty-bitty cat.

“Alright,” he says, once they’ve both got their bearings. “I think we can both agree I had that coming.”

Her eyes narrow. “Get out of my way, Monkey.”

“I just want to talk.”

“You’ve got a funny way of showing it.”

“I know, I’ve been a jerk. You’re absolutely right to be mad at me–”

She twitches a little at that, fingers tapping her moon-spade in the same gesture Pigsy makes when he’s particularly irritated. “I’m not mad at you.” 

“You’re not?” Monkey hesitates, eyeing those tapping fingers warily. “Then why did you run away before?”

“You’re _seriously_ asking me that?” That unyielding façade cracks the smallest bit. “Why did you have to come after me, Monkey? You could have at least sent someone else. I didn’t want it to be you.”

That hurts. He hadn’t expected her to just leap into his arms (much) but it hadn’t occurred to him that she wouldn’t want to deal with him _at all_.

“I brought Pigsy and Sandy,” he offers after a moment of wrestling with his pride. “Would you prefer to talk to them?”

Her lip curls. “Why in the seven hells would I prefer them? Like being captured by one friend instead of another is better.”

“Captured? Who said anything about capturing– wait a second.” Abruptly all her evasive behaviour takes on horrible new implications. “You think we’re here to _catch_ you like some sort of criminal?!”

Tripitaka falters. “… you’re not?” She says in a small voice.

“No! Of course not!”

“But…” She looks finally uncertain. “I’m a demon.”

“Yeah, like a _baby_ demon. About the most evil thing you’ve ever done is trick me into eating grubs.” Monkey folds his arms and grins at her, suddenly amused. “And since you ate them too, I don’t think it really counts.”

“That wasn’t a trick,” she says crossly. “Grubs are a viable source of protein –” She stops, shaking her head. “And that is _not_ the point. If you’re not here to catch me, then why are you here?”

“The quest, monk! The one that you said is your destiny, remember? We’ve still got six more scrolls to go, and we just wasted half a year tracking you to this backwater.” He belatedly recalls the other people in the common room and adds hastily: “No offence to your fine town.”

Tripitaka is staring at him. "You want me back on the quest?" She says at last, like he's speaking a foreign language and she's trying parse the meaning.

"Obviously.”

He wonders where she got the idea they were there to catch her. He’ll ask her about that later. It doesn’t matter, though. The important thing is that she’s here and she’s not mad at him…

"Are you insane?" She bites out.

Maybe it had been a bit premature to assume she wasn’t mad at him.

"No more than usual?” He tries with a charming smile, which has exactly no effect.

“You know how this goes!” She snaps. “You’re a god and I’m a demon and the only way this ends is with one of us dead. You _know_ this. You told me this yourself!”

Monkey winces at hearing his own words thrown back in his teeth. “Ah. About that.” He might as well start grovelling now and hope she was in a forgiving mood. Or at least not a kick-him-in-the-face mood anymore. “I’m very sorry I said that. It was wrong and insensitive and… badly timed. And you have every right to be angry at me– ”

“I’m not angry that you said it, Monkey. I’m angry that you’re endangering our lives by ignoring it!”

“…what?”

 _Seven hells_ , Monkey realises. This was worse than he’d thought. She hadn’t spent four months stewing over the cruel words he’d flung at her during her most vulnerable point. She’d spent four months twisting them round in her head until she actually _believed them_.

“Tripitaka, I didn’t mean it like that! I mean, yes, you should be careful with gods you don’t know, but I didn’t mean _we_ were going to try to and kill each other! I was just scared and venting, that’s all.” He waves a hand. “Since when do you listen to me anyway?”

“I didn’t at first,” she admits bleakly. “I should have. It would have been easier on me if I did.”

Monkey pauses, taking a closer look at her. Specifically, the scar on her cheekbone. He’d known  straight off it wasn’t the work of a human – demons didn’t scar for anything less than a bond-weapon or god-forged blade – but he’d assumed she’d had a bad run-in with her own kind. It hadn’t occurred to him that there were other, even less pleasant possibilities. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He demands. 

Her gaze avoids his. “Nothing.” 

“The hell with nothing. What is that supposed to mean, Tripitaka? Did somebody –”

He belatedly notes her shrinking body language and checks his tone. Anger is not going to make her feel safe. He can always coax a name out of her later, and then slip away to go hunting some time. (He’ll take Sandy with him. She’ll want in on that action.)

“I’m sorry,” he says. “You don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to. But I really was wrong. You know that, right?”

“You weren’t.” Tripitaka raises her chin stubbornly. “We’re just going to hurt each other and the best thing we can do is walk away right now before that happens.”

“No, the best thing you can do is come back so we can protect you.”

 Now she looks offended and a bit incredulous. “I’m a demon, remember? And I didn’t need you to protect me even when I was human.”

Monkey snorts to show what he thinks of that. “Monk, you’re less than a quarter of a century old. I don’t know about demons, but we don’t let gods out that young. If you were at Jade Mountain, you wouldn’t have even earned your second accolades yet.”

“No, I’d be in the dungeon,” she says sarcastically, sounding way too much like Monica for comfort. “Look, Monkey, I appreciate that you came all this way to apologise. But I’m not going to get one or both of us killed just because you feel bad.”

“That’s not what this is about!”

Monkey huffs a frustrated breath. Maybe this is why the Master used to say he should be careful about what he said to people, because they might take it to heart. Well, now Tripitaka’s taken it to heart and Monkey’s options are either throwing her over his shoulder and hoping she doesn’t rip his hair out, or somehow disproving this idea she’s been nursing for four months…

_Wait a second._

“You’re worried about us hurting each other?” He says suddenly.

“Yes,” she says slowly, eyeing him suspiciously. “That is what I’m saying.”

“But we’re not going to! You can use the crown!”

"Monkey, that’s exactly my point. Do you have any idea what I could do to you?”

“You won’t hurt me though.” He’s getting excited now, pleased by his logic. “Think about it. You being able to use it proves you're pure of heart, so you’re not a danger to me. And since you can use it on me, I’m not a danger to you!”

She’s giving him a look like that time he walked into a tree branch because he wasn’t watching where he was going. “You don’t even know if I can still use it. Becoming a demon could have changed me.”

“You were always a demon, monk,” he retorts with a roll of his eyes. “You just didn’t know it. But if you’re so worried, test it.”

She recoils. “What? No!”

“Come on, it’ll be fun.” He smacks his hands together, bracing himself. “Do it.”

“I’m not hurting you to prove a point, Monkey.”

“But I’m telling you to. That makes it okay.”

“This is ridiculous.” She turns back toward the kitchen. “I’m going.”

He shoves in her way. “You’re really just going to walk away? The Tripitaka I know would never give up so easily.”

“Too bad I’m not Tripitaka anymore.” She tries to get around him and he quickly blocks her again.

“Just use the crown, monk. If it doesn’t work, I’ll stop pestering you.”

“Like I believe that.”

She’s far too clever for her own good. “I’m not letting you leave until you use the crown.” He holds his arms wide to block her path.

“I told you, _no_. Just get out of my way!”

“You have control of the crown. You can literally say the word.”  

 _“Get out of my way!”_ Her eyes flash red as she thumps the moon-spade against the ground, making the floorboards shudder. It’s a fairly impressive display – or would have been, if Monkey hadn’t seen much scarier performances from much meaner demons.

She’s almost there, he thinks. She’s right on the brink. He just has to say something that will tip her over the edge, but not so awful she won’t forgive him for it later.

“You know, I don’t think you’re running away from us after all,” he says snidely. “You’re running away from yourself, because you’d rather be a coward than live with the fact that you’re a–”

 _“You told me to leave!”_ Tripitaka shrieks, dropping her moon-spade and lunging for his face.

* * *

BEFORE:

It took a while for Monkey to be satisfied they’d flown far enough from Toora. He told the cloud to descend beside a creek, where the trees formed a natural screen from the road. He laid Tripitaka’s limp body down on the grass, where she mumbled something incoherent. If it wasn’t for the red light shining between her barely cracked eyelids, he would think her merely drugged.

Which, to be fair, she was. 

By a potion that only worked on demons.

Monkey bit his thumb, trying to hold in the screaming panic. _Okay_ , he thought. _Okay, calm down. Lets think about this._

It wouldn’t be the first time Tripitaka had withheld something important about herself. While she was bad at directly lying, she was very good at strategic truths. And he couldn’t remember her ever outright _saying_ she was human. He’d just assumed. They all had.

If it was true, if she’d been a demon this whole time…

“Was it all a lie?” He said aloud. He was glad Pigsy and Sandy weren’t around to hear the bewilderment and hurt in his voice.

All he could think of was Davari’s lies, the way he’d manipulated and betrayed Monkey to get what he wanted. If Tripitaka _was_ working to an agenda, then Monkey had already cleared out the competition for her and gotten her access to at least one scroll. When will the knife in the back come? After they find the final scroll?

He laughed a bit hysterically to realise that he was more upset about the possibility of being discarded than the manipulation and betrayal. That she could admit to lying all along, and so long as she looked at him with those big eyes and said “please help me, Monkey” he’d probably do whatever she asked. She had him more fully trapped than Davari ever managed…

 _No_. _Stop it._

Even if Tripitaka was a demon, he _refused_ to believe she was manipulating him. He’d lived with her day-in, day-out for months, and he _knew_ her. A true demon wouldn’t have held his hand when he was scared, or been upset when Gwen died, or told him to leave her behind to protect the gods. Not even Davari was that good at faking it (in hindsight, there were a lot of clues to his true nature that Monkey might have seen if he’d looked past the ego-stroking). So maybe…

…maybe there was such a thing as a good demon?

The concept hurt Monkey’s brain so he had to sit down and really _think_ about it. Some gods used to say that demons were inherently evil. A smear on the face of creation, blah blah blah. However, a lot of those same gods also used to refer to Monkey as ‘that animal boy’ and wax poetic about the childlike nature of the human race, so it wasn’t like being a god made you automatically right about everything.

Plus he knew that demon politics – five hundred years ago anyway – were a lot more complicated than just ‘gods good, demons bad’. There’d been several dozen demon clans, each one with their own affiliations and customs and attitude toward the gods. Some were kill on sight, and for fuck’s sake don’t let them near any humans. Others, similar to the Kin, kept to themselves and were relatively safe so long as you didn’t cross their borders. And there were a handful that were more or less neutral and would work for anyone, even gods, if they had the money. (Monkey never lowered himself to do it, but he knew for a fact there were gods that did).

So theoretically, if demons weren’t all the same uniform stripe of morality – coming in different shades of evil and neutral – then perhaps you had occasional outliers who could be considered _good_? It would be just like Tripitaka to buck the trend and defy her nature out of pure stubbornness.

Monkey relaxed a bit as the logic settled into place. He still had a lot of questions – like what possessed Tripitaka to put herself in the path of not one, not two, but _three_ gods – but he could accept the idea of a good demon trying to go against her own kind. It wasn’t like he was particularly in love with his own kind either.

He busied himself making up camp while he waited for Tripitaka to wake up. The afternoon light had just started to fade and he’d got a little campfire going when she finally stirred.

“What –?” She rolled over, blinking blearily. “Where –” Her eyes were no longer glowing red, but she was slurring a little and listing as she tried to sit up, so he assumed the drug wasn’t out of her system yet.

“Lay still,” he advised. “You’ve been drugged.”

“I don’t feel well.”

She didn’t look well either, so pale that her freckles stood out in sharp contrast. He fetched water from the stream and she drank nearly half a skin before bringing most of it back up, vomiting watery bile into the dirt. He patted her back gingerly.

“Don’t fight it. Just let it out.”

After she was done, he helped her wash her face and drink some more water (just a few mouthfuls this time) before propping her sitting upright against a tree. There was a bit more colour to her cheeks and she seemed a bit more awake, if relaxed in that boneless way of someone who’d drunk more beer than was good for them.

 _Good_ , he thought, and hated himself for the thought. Now was a good time to get honest answers out of her, while she was still loopy from the potion.

“Where’s Sandy and Pigsy?” She asked blearily.

“Back in Toora.”

“We left them?” Her head jerked, like she’d jump upright but couldn’t quite manage the coordination to do so.

“They’re fine. Pigsy was burning down the witch-doctor’s place even as we left. You were the one that was in danger.”

“I was?” It was hard to tell if she was faking surprise or honestly confused.

“Yes.” Monkey paused for a moment and asked carefully: “Do you remember what happened?”

“No. Yes.” Her forehead wrinkled with the effort of thinking. “We went to the witch-doctor?”

“That’s right. Do you remember what happened after that?”

“I drank something?” She said after a moment. “It smelled bad.”

“Yes. It was a potion to detect demons.”

“Oh, right. I remember.” She didn’t seem particularly bothered by that information. “Do you think the others will be back soon?”

“Tripitaka.” Monkey squeezed her forearm. “I _know_.”

Her brow furrowed. “Know what?”

“That you’re a demon.”

She stared at him for the space of five heartbeats, then shook her head. “That’s not funny, Monkey." 

“Tripitaka, that potion was made to detect demons. We all drank from it. You’re the only one who reacted.”

“Don’t be ridicu- ridicu – don’t be stupid. I’m not a demon.”

Monkey studied her face warily. She didn’t seem worried or scared, just annoyed at his tasteless joke.

For the first time, it occurred to him that drinking the potion – knowing full well what it did – was an incredibly stupid move from a very intelligent girl. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know what it was going in, either. All she’d have had to do was side with Monkey and they’d never have entered Toora in the first place. 

But how could she not know, unless –

“You’re seventeen,” he said suddenly, the full awful scope of the situation hitting him.

“Yes,” she said grumpily. “It’s not my birthday yet. Let me sleep.”

“No, Tripitaka, stay awake.” He couldn’t believe he hadn't thought of this before. Seventeen was a little late for gods to awaken but maybe she was a late bloomer, or perhaps demons were on a different schedule? It’s not like he’d ever sat down and discussed the particulars with them.

If she hadn’t awoken yet, it would explain everything. Why she’d set herself at odds with her own kind, why she’d sought out gods that would have no compunctions about killing demons, why she’d never used her powers even in situations that it would be suicidal not to. Not a conscious decision, as he’d assumed, but the innocent assumption that she was human.

What would happen when she discovered otherwise?

For a brief, shining moment, Monkey considered just not telling her. She already thought he was joking. He could let her go on thinking that… right up until her awakening hit and she figured out he was lying to her.

“Tripitaka, listen,” he said. “Have you ever been sick?”

“What?”

“Have you ever been sick? The flu? The pox? Red-rash?”

Her brow furrowed. “We lived in the forest. Who would we catch it from?”

Okay, good point. “How about accidents?” He tried. “Have you ever cut yourself on a knife, burnt yourself building a fire, broken a bone falling out of a tree?”

“I –” She stopped. “Lots of people are lucky,” she said, and he knew from her uncertain tone that she was finally listening to him. “And besides, I’ve been sick before. The Kin poisoned me. Remember?”

“No one’s immune to the Kin’s poison.” He pressed his point home: “Resistance to disease and injury are common signs of a child that’s not going to turn out human. Lots of young gods or demons are described as unusually lucky before they awaken.”

She just stared at him, growing paler and paler. “I could be a god,” she said in a small, desperate voice.

“You’re not.”

Monkey wasn’t really surprised when she abruptly rolled over and threw up again. “Ancestors preserve me,” she croaked. “Ancestors guide me and release me to… release me to…” He realised uncomfortably that she was crying.

“Tripitaka.” His hand hovered over the small of her back, uncertain if she would welcome the touch, before withdrawing.

Eventually she sat up again. “This doesn’t change anything,” she said. “Right?” Her tone was so hopeful, it was an effort not to lie to her dirty, tear-streaked face.

“It changes everything,” he admitted, looking away and passing a weary hand across his eyes. “You’ll probably awaken soon and I don’t know what will happen then.”

“I don’t understand. What could happen?”

“Seven hells, Tripitaka, _I don’t know_. I’ve never been around a dormant demon before.” He felt bitterly angry at himself, that he’d never thought to ask these questions back when there were still gods around who could answer them. The Master would have known, he was sure of it. “Maybe nothing happens. Maybe you stay the same, just with a few extra powers. Or maybe you’ll get instincts you’ll have to fight. It could happen overnight, or it could be gradual. I don’t know.”

“But…” She looked terrified. “I can still continue with the quest, right?”

Monkey hesitated. “I think,” he said carefully. “That the quest isn’t what you should be worrying about right now.”

“But –”

“Tripitaka, we can’t have an unknown factor like this hanging over us. You know that.”

She gave him a tragic look, as if he’d just kicked her favourite puppy and pointed a Font Demon at her best friend’s house. But damn it all, there was no way he was letting her have her awakening on the road. She could bitch about it all she wanted, it would be a whole lot less horrifying for her (and stressful for the rest of them) if they found somewhere safe to settle until it passed. It wasn’t like the sacred scrolls were going anywhere.

“What about Jade Mountain?” She said suddenly, face shining with hope. “We could go to Jade Mountain and ask the gods there. Maybe they have a cure. They could fix me–!”

“Tripitaka,” Monkey said, and had to repeat himself louder before she stopped talking: “Tripitaka, there _is no cure_! And you can’t be around other gods.”

Her lip quivered. “Why not?”

She could not seriously have asked him that. “Tripitaka, you _are a demon_. The last five hundred years have been war between our kind. Any god who recognises you for what you are, it’s only going to end one way. _With one of you dead._ ” 

He realised too late that he was shouting at her. She stared at him with huge eyes, then burst into tears.

_Shit._

He watched her shaking shoulders uncomfortably. It guiltily occurred to him that she was still drugged up from the potion and that maybe this conversation could have waited until she was sober. 

“I’m sorry,” he said after a moment. “It’s been a long day.”

Tripitaka didn’t look up or stop crying. He felt like the worst person in existence.

“Look,” he said finally. “I’m going to go find Pigsy and Sandy. Will you be okay by yourself?”

She looked up. “You’re leaving me here?” She said, horrified.  

“I can’t take you back to Toora with me,” he pointed out, rising to his feet. “They just tried to kill you.” She followed, or tried to. Her legs didn’t seem to be working right, and he had to catch her before she face-planted in the dirt.

“I won’t be any trouble,” she pleaded frantically, clutching at his arms. “I won’t argue with you anymore, I promise. I’ll listen, I’ll do as I’m told –”

 _If only_ , he thought wryly, laying her back down. “Just drink some more water and get some rest. Things will look better in the morning. I’ve left your bag over there next to the fire. Do you need me to get you a blanket before I go?” 

She shook her head slowly, folding in on herself unhappily. At least she wasn’t trying to latch onto him anymore. On impulse, he leant down to kiss her forehead, but she turned her face away, rebuffing the gesture.

“Right,” he said awkwardly. “Yes, probably not a good - I’ll just be going then.”

She didn’t reply, but as he was flying off, he saw her watching him, her small tear-stained face growing smaller and smaller before it was swallowed up by distance. He thought she might have called after him but couldn’t hear her over the wind. Perhaps he ought to go back.

No, she’d be fine for an hour or two by herself. He’ll fetch Pigsy and Sandy, and between the four of them they can sort out this mess.

* * *

NOW:

Monkey’s plan isn’t going exactly how he intended.

He’d figured if that if he pushed Tripitaka hard enough, she’d lose her temper and use the crown. He hadn’t expected Tripitaka – calm, measured, thoughtful Tripitaka – to go for him with her fists like a street rat from the school of hard knocks. Though in hindsight perhaps he should have, after Pigsy’s stories about female demons.

He manages to catch her wrists, but forgets to brace properly because – well, it’s Tripitaka; he’s used to thinking of her as human – so isn’t prepared for the force of her body slamming into his. He stumbles backward, trips over a chair because apparently this is how his luck is running today, and ends up on his back with a tiny demon girl straddling his stomach trying to smear fallen food in his hair.  

“You lying, selfish hypocrite!” She’s shouting. “You can’t just tell me to leave, then act like it didn’t happen! What is wrong with you?!”

“Ow, not the hair!” He uses their difference in weight to reverse their positions, pinning her under him. “What are you talking about? I didn’t tell you to leave!”

She makes a noise like a boiling tea kettle and tries to bite his hand.

“Ow!” He makes the mistake of letting go, at which point she makes a valiant effort at shoving his face in a pool of soup. She’s not as strong as he is (no surprise; few beings are) but it’s actually quite difficult to pin a smaller opponent when you don’t want to hurt them and they have no compunctions about hurting you.

After a bit more grappling, she ends up on top again and he decides to let her have it while he holds her wrists to stop her going for his hair again. “No, seriously,” he says, hooking his ankle over hers, just in case he needs to reverse their positions quickly. “I didn’t tell you to leave. When did I tell you that?” 

“In Toora!” She twists her arms, but can’t break his grip. “You _dumped_ me by the side of the road and _left_ me there all alone!” 

Suddenly it all comes clear what had happened. “Tripitaka, _I was coming back_!”

That makes her pause for a second, frowning down at him. Then her gaze hardens. “Don’t lie to me, Monkey.”

“I’m not lying!”

“You told me I couldn’t be on the quest! I remember you saying it!”

“I meant we needed to take time off! For your awakening!”

She stills. “What?”

“We couldn’t be on the road when you were about to pop. I mean, that’s just asking for trouble. I thought we’d take a few months to wait it out, and get back to it once you…” He shrugs awkwardly. “… popped?”

Tripitaka isn’t struggling anymore, so he cautiously lets go of her wrists. It seems to be the right decision because she doesn’t try to attack him again, just stares at him like she can’t comprehend what he said.

“What,” she says again.

“Honestly I don’t even know how you got ‘leaving forever’ out of that,” Monkey continues, both relieved and annoyed at this mess starting from such an unnecessary misunderstanding. “Were you even listening to –” He pauses as something very obvious occurs to him. “Shit.” He covers his eyes with his hands, furious at himself. “Shit, piss, and fucking _fireballs_. You were blitzed!”

He’d known she wasn’t sober when he was talking to her; he’d deliberately used it to leverage answers out of her. And Pigsy later told him the potion was derived from a herb that demons used as a sedative and anaesthetic. _“Knocks them silly,”_ he’d said. _“Locke took some once for a broken hand and forgot who I was for two hours.”_ In hindsight, it was a minor miracle that Tripitaka had followed as much of the conversation as she had. 

“Okay,” he says out loud, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I can see now how you got the wrong idea.”

She doesn’t say anything and when he peeks at her, she’s not smiling.

“Tripitaka?” He says cautiously, lowering his hands.

“You could have looked for me,” she points out in a small, angry voice.

“I did look.”

“Not very hard. You have the cloud, I was on foot. I kept expecting, for days –” She breaks off, clenching her fists, and he doesn’t want to think about Tripitaka watching the sky, hoping that he would appear.

“I couldn’t use the cloud,” he tells her. “You remember those bond-weapons in the witch-doctor’s hut? Well, some joker had the bright idea to grab one, and cracked me over the head with it. Gave me one hell of a concussion. It took days for me to be able to summon the cloud properly.”

Her lips move in a soundless ‘oh’, hand rising to cover her appalled mouth. Monkey feels the same way. Gods, what a bloody mess. Granted this whole thing was probably never going to go well, but it definitely could have gone a lot better.

“We found you eventually, though,” he points out, shifting her weight back so he can sit up a bit. “That’s the important thing.”

Tripitaka’s hand on his breastplate stops him before he can pull her into a hug. “You yelled at me.” She doesn’t sound angry just sad. “I didn’t imagine that. You said awful things.”

Monkey swallows. “…no,” he agrees. “You didn’t imagine that.” At least now he knows what to say, because he’s been practising it for four months, ready for when he laid eyes on her again. “I’m really sorry for what I said that night. Because you needed me to be there and instead I made everything worse than it had to be, all because I was thinking about how I was feeling. Not you, the person it was actually happening to. What I should have said was, I don’t care what you are, I trust in your deeds. You’re still Tripitaka.”

She’s silent for a few seconds, absorbing that. Then she seems to remember that she’s more or less sitting his lap. “I have to go.”

“Wait.” He loops an arm about her waist to stall her. “Are we okay?”

“I don’t know, Monkey.” She’s avoiding his gaze, leaning away from his grip. “I’m not going anywhere. I just need to be by myself, to think.”

He starts to argue that every time she leaves his sight she disappears, then recalls something she said to him once. _It’s not all about you, Monkey._ Maybe it would make him feel better to have her in sight, but it’s not what she needs or wants right now.

“Okay,” he says, and removes his hand from her waist. “I’ll, um, see you tomorrow then? Or you know, the next day. Or the day after that. Whenever you feel ready.”

The corners of her mouth curl in a ghost of a smile. “Thank you, Mon–”

She stiffens mid-word, red-gold fire flashing in her eyes. Monkey hurriedly catches her as she starts to crumple sideways. He doesn’t understand what’s happening until he lays her down and sees the crossbow bolt sticking out of her back.

There’s a strange ringing in his ears as he looks up. A mercenary is standing by the door, re-loading a crossbow. 

“Kortath?” Tripitaka breathes, sounding bewildered. 

The mercenary sneers. “You demons are always so arrogant. Think you control us with a light show and a few threats. I don’t lick any demon’s boots.” He nods at Monkey. “No need to thank me, Monkey King. I’ve got your back.”

Monkey doesn’t quite remember standing or drawing the pin from his hair. He does remember, however, the satisfying crack of his staff sending the man flying. The crossbow drops and Monkey stamps hard on the mechanism, shattering it, then stalks after the shooter.

Kortath is crawling backwards. “Wait, I’m on your side!”

Monkey grabs him by the neck and slams him against the wall. “You  _hurt_  her.”

“She’s just a demon–” He chokes satisfyingly as Monkey presses the staff against his throat. His face turns red as he gasps for air, clawing at Monkey’s hands and finding no purchase. Monkey bares his teeth, pleased to finally have a clear target for his rage. Someone is calling his name, but he ignores them, too busy crushing this piece of filth –

The crown turns hot. He has just enough time to think _“oh shit”_  before it exerts sudden crushing pressure. He drops both mercenary and staff, collapsing to his knees with a yell. Pain eats up his world in time with Tripitaka’s voice chanting behind him.

It’s only a few seconds, but it’s a few seconds too long. When the pain relents and he manages to blink tears from his eyes to look around, Tripitaka is lowering her fingers from her lips. “He’s human," she says. "You can’t kill him.”

“Watch me,” Monkey retorts, but it’s bravado. The anger has already left him, and he no longer has the will to pursue the mercenary who’s scrambling to his feet and out the door. Monkey’s focus is on Tripitaka, who’s still lying on her side where he left her. He painfully staggers to her and sinks down behind her. His voice hitches as he reaches trembling hands to examine the wound. “See, I told you that you could use the crown.”

“I’m still not sure that’s a good thing,” she says, voice a little breathless with pain. “How bad is it?” 

“Just a regular old crossbow bolt. You’ll be fine.” He lays a soothing hand on her side before she can move. “Stay still. It’s going to hurt a lot more if you jostle it around.”

“Oh, right.”

Monkey is more worried than he lets on. He knows from experience that while demons are resistant to wounds from mortal weapons, they’re not completely immune. If he can get it out without doing her more damage, she’ll be healed within the hour. But if the bolt is pressing on a major artery, she could bleed out faster than she can heal.  And he has no idea if it’s barbed or not.

He’s just reconsidering chasing down Kortath when the tavern door opens.

Pigsy and Sandy enter, then stop to take in the shambled wreck of the common room; the overturned furniture, broken dishes, groaning mercenaries, and in the middle of it, a battered Monkey kneeling beside an injured Tripitaka.

“Seriously?” Pigsy says disbelievingly. “We left you alone for  _one_  evening.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bit about eating grubs is my own headcanon outlined here:  
> https://scrumptiousconnoisseurdreamer.tumblr.com/post/175829044173/better-than-dying-of-thirst-right
> 
> Also, many thanks to timeforsomethrillingheroics for the beta read :-)


	5. Chapter 5

NOW

When Sandy climbs out of the sewer, Pigsy is waiting for her.

“Anything?” He asks.

“Nothing.” Sandy accepts the hand he offers, letting him haul her out of the open grate. “Someone’s been to my lair, moved a few things, but they’re not there now. It might not have even been Tripitaka.”

Pigsy nods thoughtfully. “I suppose your lair wasn’t really a secret by the time we left.” He helps her drag the drain cover back into place and straightens with a sigh, knuckling his back. “Lets head back to the tavern. Tripitaka’s probably bunked down somewhere for the night; I doubt we’ll find her before morning.”

Sandy shakes her head. “I’m going to keep looking; there’s a few more places I’d like to check.”

“It’s pretty dark.”

“I’m used to the dark.”

He peers at her through the shadows. “Tripitaka made it all the way to Pallawa by herself. Sleeping rough for one night isn’t going to hurt her.”

That depends on your definition of hurt. Just because you can survive sleeping in a sewer or on a cold stone floor doesn’t mean it’s pleasant, or that you aren’t utterly miserable. However, that isn’t the reason for Sandy’s urgency.

“I think,” she says carefully. “That if we don’t find Tripitaka soon, we’re not going to find her.”

“We have the moon-spade, remember. She wouldn’t leave that behind unless she was planning to come back.”

Sandy doesn’t have the heart to tell him it’s different when you can’t just summon your bond-weapon to hand. When you’re trapped and terrified and you’d gnaw your own foot off to escape. “Still. I’d like to look. You can go back if you want.”

"Nah," he says after a moment. "There's a couple of old hidey-holes I can check up near the palace. Might as well do it now, eh." 

They leave the alley and start heading north. Pigsy whistles to himself, leaving Sandy to her thoughts. They aren’t happy ones.

Pigsy has no idea how devastating it is to have someone you trust call you a demon. Sandy’s not entirely sure he grasps that it’s a problem. Pigsy had been… well… you could almost say he was _pleased_ about Tripitaka being a demon.

 _“It explains so much!”_ He’d said while they were walking out of Toora. “ _She always gets out of trouble without a scratch. What do you think her active powers will be? Cerebral or physical? I’m thinking cerebral.”_

 _“Don’t go on and on about it,”_ Monkey had muttered, leaning on Sandy for support since he was pretty badly concussed. “ _People will think you’re going to apprentice her.”_

Pigsy just nodded sagely. _“I was thinking that myself. I am the oldest, so my claim gets priority over yours and Sandy’s. Though I guess we’ll have to ask her who she prefers.”_

Sandy had been scandalised at the idea of a god apprenticing a demon. (It was a novel sensation, actually. She’d never been scandalised before.) When she’d had time to think about it, though, she saw Pigsy’s point. Where else was Tripitaka going to learn? Her own kind?  Even if they could be trusted not to stab her in the back for what she did to Davari, the thought of her learning from someone like the Shaman or Raxion makes Sandy's skin crawl. 

That being said, it took a lot of internal reasoning for Sandy to swallow her knee-jerk reaction and accept Pigsy’s conclusion. So the fact that he immediately jumped to it makes Sandy wonder about a few things.

 “Pigsy,” she says after a few minutes of walking. “Can I ask you something personal?”

“Sure.”

“How ol–” She’s cut off by someone shouting after them:

“Gods! Hey, gods!”

“What now?” Pigsy mutters, turning back. A group of four men approach. Not mercenaries, Sandy thinks. She recognises one of them as a farmhand, another as a blacksmith’s apprentice. Young and energised in the way of men with a few drinks in their bellies, ready to try something stupid.

“Word is you’re looking for a demon,” one of them says.

“Maybe we are,” Pigsy shrugs. “You know where we can find her?”

“Nah, just wondering if there’s a reward?”

Pigsy's pause is so subtle, someone else might not have noticed. “Reward?”

“You know. For killing it.” The boy is smiling, wide and oblivious.

Sandy and Pigsy glance at each other. Pigsy makes a small gesture as if to say ‘all yours’.

“You know,” Sandy says, gliding forward. Sometimes in the dark, this liquid flow of muscle and joint can be unsettling for humans. Normally she tries to move in a more human way, just as she trains herself to smile and make eye contact and do the many small things to put humans at their ease. Not tonight. “I think I recognise you. Gaf, was it? And Erdas?”

“Uh. Yeah.” His smile dims a bit as he seems to recall the nature of their previous encounters.

“You used to think I was a demon. You threw mud at me, and stones, and other things. And what was that charming name you used to call me?”

Smile now gone, Gaf takes a step back. “I don’t – ”

“Say it.” Sandy backs him against a wall.

“Look, I’m sorry alright. I didn’t know you were a god.”

“That’s not what I told you to do. Say the name.” She holds her scythe between them, not quite at his neck but in easy reaching distance.

He wets his lip. “Sh – shit-demon?”

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it.” She pinches his chin between her fingers and hisses: “You even think about laying a hand on Tripitaka – you so much as look at her cross-eyed – think about all the deep places under the city. All the lonely watery ways just waiting for company. And you think again.”

He nods frantically. “I will. I will, I promise.”

She steps back. “Now get out of my sight.”

He and his friends don’t need to be told twice, bolting down the street. Pigsy is picking at his nails.

“So that’s not good,” he says. “Is this what you meant when you said we had to find her?”

Sandy decides not to answer the question. “There’ll be more. We should go back to the tavern.”

“ _Now_ you want to go back?”

“To get Monkey. We can cover more ground that way.” And hopefully between the three of them they can find Tripitaka and get out of this city before anything else can go wrong.

“Right, then. Lets get a move on.”

They head in the opposite direction of the young men, weaving through the small labyrinthine streets. It’s almost instinct after so many years lived here. It’s never felt so small and oppressive though, like the walls are trying to close in.

They’re just going up the street to the tavern when they nearly run into a man charging the opposite way, who shoves past them and keeps running.

“Was that Kortath?” Sandy says with a frown. She’d warned him last time that if he ever showed his face in town she’d knock out his eye-teeth. He must have decided her being absent rescinded that ultimatum. Unfortunately for him.

“Worry about him later,” Pigsy says, striding toward the tavern. “We’ll get Monkey and –”

He pushes open the tavern door and stops. Sandy, on his heels, nearly runs into him before she sees what he’s looking at.

The tavern looks like a hurricane hit it. Tables and chairs have been overturned. What patrons aren’t cowering behind furniture are groaning on the ground. There’s food on the floor, on the walls, on the _ceiling_.

Monica, Sandy thinks somewhere between horror and awe, is going to murder Monkey.

In the midst of this disaster zone, Monkey is leaning over a slim boy lying on his side… no wait, that’s not a boy. That’s a girl in boy’s clothing. Her big familiar eyes are dazed like she’s trying work out what just happened.

Well, Sandy thinks with a flash of relief. At least that takes care of finding Tripitaka.

“Seriously?” Pigsy says in disbelief. “We left you alone for _one_ evening.”

Monkey for once doesn’t take the bait. He jumps to his feet, demanding: “Where the seven hells have you been? Tripitaka’s been shot!”

“What?” Sandy steps over a groaning patron, quickly crossing the floor to kneel down beside Triptiaka. Sure enough, that’s a crossbow bolt sticking out of her back. “She got all the way here with that in her?”

“No.” Monkey runs an agitated hand through his hair, perhaps unaware there’s soup in it. “We were fighting – arguing – talking – we weren’t looking, and some mercenary shot her in the back.”

Sandy looks around at the tavern. “Where is he now?”

“Tripitaka made me let him go. He ran for it. Can we please focus on the part where she’s been shot?”

“Stop panicking,” Pigsy says, shoving his rake at Monkey. “Let me take a gander.”

“Do you even know what you’re doing?”

“I’ve lived through my share of wars. I’ve removed more of these things than I like to remember.” He kneels down. “Now Tripitaka, I’m going to need to cut away your shirt. Is that okay?”

For a moment, Sandy thinks that Tripitaka – pale and stunned – is not going to answer. Then she answers faintly: “Monica gave it to me.”

“I’ll buy you a new shirt,” Monkey promises recklessly. “Two new shirts!”

“What did I say about panicking?” Pigsy says with a look.

“Where is Monica anyway?” Sandy asks.  

“Somewhere.” Monkey gestures vaguely. “She was in the kitchen. Cooking or something?”

Odd that she isn’t already here yelling at Monkey.

“I’ll go find her.” Sandy glances around the room at the customers who’re slowly coming out of hiding to gawk at the scene. “Everyone else can go home. _Now_.”

As the people drift toward the front door, she heads out back, pushing through the curtain into the kitchen.

It’s empty. There’s a pot of soup bubbling on the stove, some vegetables half-chopped on a board, the unsecured back door thumping gently in the breeze. Sandy pushes it open, looking out into the alley.

“Monica?”

Nothing. The shrine candles waver faintly in their waxen cups, and Sandy blows them out before pulling the door closed. She doesn’t lock it, just in case Monica comes back this way. She probably popped out to a neighbouring shop to get something.

Sandy is just taking the soup off the stove when Monkey barges in through the curtains demanding “Where’s Pigsy’s pack?”

“Over there.” Sandy nods at the corner and Monkey pounces on Pigsy’s bag, digging through the pockets. “What are you doing?”

“Pigsy told me to find a package in the right side pocket – ah hah!” He triumphantly holds up a package wrapped in brown cloth and yells: “Okay Pigsy, we found it! Now what?”

Pigsy comes in a few moments later. “Now we get ready. Not you, Sandy. Go sit with Tripitaka.”

Sandy takes no offence. She’s only been gradually learning to cook. Surprisingly, Monkey is the best teacher on this subject. Pigsy takes food far too seriously and is unforgiving of mistakes, while Tripitaka has some strange ideas about what counts as edible.

Speaking of, Tripitaka is curled up on the empty common room floor, with the look of someone contemplating whether or not they _really_ need that limb.

Sandy hesitates, then spots the moon-spade on the other side of the table. She brings it over, laying it in reach so that Tripitaka can draw it close. “Thank you,” she says softly, fingers stroking it absently like petting a cat. 

It's the first words they've exchanged in months and Sandy has no idea how to respond. 

"No one's going to hurt you." Or maybe she does.  

Tripitaka flicks her a sceptical look, which Sandy accepts is entirely logical from the viewpoint of an injured demon. Then she says: "Someone just shot me in the back." 

"I meant with us," Sandy clarifies. 

Tripitaka just closes her eyes, resting her forehead against her moon-spade. "I know." 

Sandy doesn't believe it. Why else would Tripitaka leave, unless she no longer felt safe with the gods?

Monkey thinks it was what he’d said that drove Tripitaka away, but Sandy knows better. Tripitaka is too stubborn to be driven away by a few thoughtless words. The quest was too important to her. It made more sense if she thought there was a real chance the gods would turn on her. She'd spent months watching them kill demons at every turn, she knew Monkey's history of betrayal, could guess at the horrors of Sandy's past. The only exception might be Pigsy, and given that he turned on Locke eventually, he might not seem like the most reliable person to bet her safety on.

The worst part – the part that haunts Sandy late at night – was that it wasn’t entirely without basis. The first time she’d met Tripitaka, she’d threatened her with a blade on the mere suspicion she was working for a demon. If she’d suspected that she actually _was_ a demon…

"Why did it work?" Tripitaka asks suddenly. 

"What?" Sandy says, jolted out of the unhappy spiral of her thoughts.

"Shooting me. Why did it work? I've seen you guys be shot before. It doesn't go deep, if you don't just catch it to start with." Tripitaka sounds faintly aggrieved by her own failure to do the same. Sandy considers pointing out that catching projectiles takes practice and even the most skilled god or demon can be taken off-guard. However, she doesn't think that's what Tripitaka wants to know. 

"Gods are tougher than demons. Literally. It's hard to make a mark on us, even if you manage to hit us." 

"...oh." 

"But demons heal faster than we do, so it balances out. And that's relative to each other, not humans. By human standards we're both equally..." She searches for a word that isn't ‘ _unnatural’_ or _‘abnormal’_. "... strange," she finally settles on. 

Tripitaka thinks about that. "What if a wound didn't heal properly?" She says carefully. "What if it healed slowly and made you sick because it got infected. Is that normal?" 

Sandy, not being an idiot, knows exactly what Tripitaka is circling around. She also knows that if Tripitaka wanted to address it directly, she would. 

"It depends," she replies carefully. "Some wounds behave differently, depending on where you got them. God-forged blades, for example. There are some poisons, like what the Kin coat their weapons with. And bond-weapons, of course." 

"Bond-weapons?" 

Sandy lifts her shirt to show the scar over her left side, where a demon had tried to stab her half a century ago. He'd failed to make a killing blow, but the blade had skimmed across her ribs. "Wounds from a bond-weapon heal slow. And they always leave a scar." 

Tripitaka reaches as if to touch, then stops, so Sandy takes her hand and guides it to her side, letting her feel the raised scar tissue. "Does it hurt?" 

"Occasionally, when it's very dry or hot." Crossing the desert, it had been a persistent ache, like a seam in her skin. She’d had a vivid, irrational fear that it would pop open and the bits of her would spill out everywhere. "Does yours?" 

Tripitaka draws back her hand. "Sometimes. If someone manages to hit me in the face." 

"Who's hitting you in the face?" Sandy demands and Tripitaka unexpectedly grins. 

"I'm a _bouncer_. People try to hit me all the time. Sometimes they get lucky." She touches her cheek, absently running her fingers along the scar tissue. "Monica says it's the same with her eye. It'll be fine for ages, and then she bumps her head or she doesn't sleep properly, and suddenly it's like a stone grinding on bone in there." 

Ah, Monica. It occurs to Sandy that the tavernkeeper is probably the reason Tripitaka hadn't ended up going slowly crazy in a sewer. Consciously or subconsciously she'd been heading back this way, toward somewhere she felt safe, and Monica had that particular mix of practicality and compassion that would bully Tripitaka into letting her take care of her. 

 _Would_ Tripitaka want to go back to the quest, when all is said and done? Sandy thinks she'd be better off with them, for a number of different reasons, but if Tripitaka decides she wants to stay, it’s going to be hard to convince her otherwise. 

Pigsy returns from the kitchen, carrying a pot of tea and a cup. It smells vaguely like boiled grass to Sandy, but Tripitaka twitches when it's set down, lip curling back from her teeth like it was the rotting corpse cactus all over again. "Where did you get that?" She demands, looking at the pot like it's a coiled snake. 

"That witch-doctor in Toora," Pigsy says, pouring a cup. "I burned most of her stuff, but I figured this might come in handy." 

"Handy for _what_?" 

Sandy frowns, feeling there's some undercurrent she's not following. "I don't understand." 

"It's the herb from that potion in Toora," Pigsy tells her. "The one they were using to find demons. _Idiots._  High quality pain relief and they were using it for murder." He sounds quite offended by that. 

"I remember what it does," Tripitaka says, wincing away from the cup he tries to give her. "No, thank you." 

Pigsy looks surprised. "That bolt's not going to come out easy. It'll be easier on all of us – especially you – if you're not squirming around while I'm doing it." 

Tripitaka flicks a look at the cup. She doesn't say anything but her expression speaks volumes. Sandy supposes that, given the disastrous turn Tripitaka’s life had taken after last time, it would give anyone a bit of a complex about the stuff. 

"You don't have to," she says gently. "But..."

"...but you think I should." 

Sandy shrugs apologetically. "Yes." 

Tripitaka wets her lips. "I don't suppose you can make it smell any better?" 

Sandy's a little confused - it doesn't smell that bad to her - but Pigsy says: "Sorry. I mixed it with black tea, so that might cover up the taste a little." 

Tripitaka grimaces and finally reaches for the cup. Pigsy helps her hold it while she takes a gulp, then jerks her chin away with a sound like she’s trying not to gag. "Ugh!" 

"Little more than that," Pigsy says.

"The tea doesn't help," Tripitaka tells him accusingly, and finishes the cup, making faces while she did so. Sandy fetches water to help her wash the taste out, but by the time she gets back, Tripitaka's already blinking blearily, her eyes glowing a dim red-gold like a banked fire. "I don't like this,” she slurs.

"Lay your head down," Pigsy advises. "Close your eyes." 

She starts to lower her head, then abruptly jerks up, fumbling for Sandy's wrist. "Don't leave," she says urgently. 

Sandy squeezes her hand. "We're not leaving." 

"I had to walk all the way back. Monica threw out my shoes." 

"No one's throwing out any shoes. Go to sleep, Tripitaka." 

Tripitaka lowers her head to her arms and her breath evens out. Pigsy waits for a minute, then peels one eyelid back to check her pupils. "Okay, she's out. Monkey, you finished sterilizing yet?" 

"Almost!" Monkey calls from the kitchen. 

Sandy gives Pigsy a narrow look. "You're very good at this. Treating demons." 

"Yeah, I lived with Locke. Had to know how to help her."

No one can hide a secret better than Pigsy. Maybe because everything he says sounds sarcastic, so even if he slipped up, people would assume he's joking. 

Sandy asks the question she hadn't got the chance to earlier. "Exactly how old are you, Pigsy?" 

She’s not surprised when he doesn’t answer. "Older than the three of you put together. Now help me get Tripitaka’s shirt off. This is going to be messy and I'd prefer not to get blood everywhere."

* * *

When Tripitaka wakes, she's on her stomach and Pigsy is lifting up the back of her shirt. 

"...looking good," he's saying. "Healing up nicely." 

Tripitaka wants to ask who he's talking about, but she's warm and comfortable and nothing hurts. This is good. She’s awake just long enough to feel him tuck the blanket back over her and then she's slipping under again.

* * *

The next time, she awakes with the certainty that something's wrong. It's so strong she fights the dense fogginess of sleep to struggle out of bed, except her legs don't want to obey and she ends up on her hands and knees on the wooden floor of the tavern.

Monica's tavern. Where she currently is. 

Still trying to process that, she looks up and finds herself surrounded by gods. Pigsy is looking up from a book. Sandy is blinking drowsily from her blankets. Monkey snorts and jerks awake from where he's napping against the wall. 

"Tripitaka?" He says, words fuzzy with sleep. "You're up?" 

"I didn’t do anything," she tries to tell them. “I was just trying to help.” The words come out strange. Nothing makes sense anyway, corners made of shadows, the cracks between floorboards big enough to fall through and get lost. Anything could be hiding out there. 

"Nothing’s out there," Pigsy tells her gently. "You're dreaming." 

She is? 

"Tripitaka," Sandy yawns, holding open her blankets. "Come here." 

Tripitaka crawls across the floor and scrambles under the blankets with Sandy. There. This feels better. Nothing can find them under here.

Sandy arranges the blankets around them, tucking Tripitaka in.  "Go to sleep." 

Tripitaka tries to stay awake, but it’s a losing battle. And Sandy will keep watch. Sandy always –

* * *

She wakes what feels like minutes later, but is probably hours. Pigsy's not here, but Monkey is slumped asleep on his stomach, his blankets tangled around him. Sandy’s the only one awake, sitting over by the candle, reading a scroll. She looks sad.

“Sandy,” Tripitaka whispers, and Sandy looks up, hastily rubbing away tears. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Sandy puts the scroll down and comes over. “Just a sad story, that’s all. Do you need anything?”

Tripitaka thinks about it. “The outhouse.”

Sandy helps her get up and guides her patiently out to the little side building. Thankfully Tripitaka is just awake enough to take care of things herself, even if she does need Sandy to guide her back inside afterwards because she can’t find the door.

Monkey is awake when they get back inside. “Everything okay?” He whispers to Sandy.

“She’s fine, just needed the outhouse. Has Pigsy come back yet?" 

"Not yet. He should have found her by now. I should -"

Tripitaka pays no attention and heads straight for the first pile of blankets she sees. Monkey happens to be in them, which is a bit annoying, but she decides not to hold it against him since he turns out to be nice and warm.

“Um, Tripitaka –” He starts as she snuggles against his back.

“Good night,” she tells him with a yawn, closing her eyes. She drifts off, comfortably warm. 

* * *

BEFORE

Six weeks after Toora, Tripitaka came upon bandits roughing up a merchant caravan. It was neither the first nor even second time she’d seen this sort of thing, and she was just glad she was in time to do more than bury the bodies.

She dumped her bag by the side of the road and ran at the man dragging a screaming woman by her hair. He saw Tripitaka coming and laughed.

“Come at me, little girl–”

Had she been human, it might have worked when he caught the moon-spade. He was a very big man and she was a tiny woman, and had matters been what they appeared he might have harmlessly absorbed the force of the blow.

Unfortunately for him, she was not human. And even more unfortunately, she was not very good at controlling the force of her blows.

The crunch of his wrist-bones was audible even to Tripitaka. His sneer cut off into an agonised scream as he doubled-over, cradling his broken hand. Tripitaka kicked him away from the sobbing woman.

“Get out of here!” She shouted. As he scrambled off into the woods, she turned her attention to his friends. Half seemed intent on looting, the other half on fighting an armoured man wielding a weapon Tripitaka wasn’t familiar with; some kind of cylinder perhaps a thumb-width wide, like a sawn-off staff.

Briefly, she wondered what a man in such fancy armour was doing with a poor merchant caravan, then decided it didn’t matter and started smacking heads together.

Once she’d knocked out three, the bandits seemed to decide that looting wasn’t worth the risk and ran off into the forest.

“Fucking gods!” One shouted over his shoulder, which gave Tripitaka a grim sort of amusement. Would he have run faster or slower, knowing the truth?

“Fucking bandits,” the armoured man retorted, shaking his head in disgust. To Tripitaka he said: “Thank you. I didn’t know anyone was coming from Jade Mountain to meet me.”

“I was just passing through, I’m not from Jade Mountain.”

“Oh.” He looked her over, gaze lingering on the moon-spade. He started to say something, then was distracted by a grey-haired man rushing over.

“They’ve taken Kasi!”

“What?” The armoured man’s gaze sharpened. “Are you sure?”

The man nodded frantically. “Her sister saw them take her into her woods. Please, she’s only fifteen, just a baby–” He wrung his hands beseechingly and the armoured man nodded quickly.

“Get yourselves to Jade Mountain as quick as you can. I’ll meet you there.”

“But Kasi –”

“We’ll get her back, I promise.” The man gestured to Tripitaka. “Come on.”

He said it with such an automatic assumption of authority that Tripitaka followed without thinking. It was only when they’d been running through the woods for a few minutes that she remembered that she had no idea who he was. 

“Do you know where we’re going?” She called out. “They could have gone anywhere.”

“I can follow my quarry anywhere,” he said dismissively over his shoulder. “So long as the trail is less than a day old. It’s one of my gifts.”

“Your –” And Tripitaka nearly tripped over a tree root as it hit her; he’s a _god_. No wonder that bandit had been swearing about gods as he left.

He glanced back at her impatiently. “What?”

“Nothing.” She hurried to follow, wondering if this was such a good idea. Monkey had explicitly warned her (in words that stabbed and hurt even weeks later) that associating with gods was dangerous. It was why he’d kicked her off the quest.

But what did he know? He hadn’t even _tried_. He’d just walked away and left her.

“What about you?” The god said, interrupting Tripitaka’s thoughts. “What can you do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on.” He flicked a grin back at her. “It’s pretty obvious what you are. I saw you deal with those bandits.”

Tripitaka hesitated, but he didn’t seem upset. Maybe he was like Pigsy, who had a soft spot for demon women. “I guess I can hit people? Really hard, apparently.”

He snorted in amusement. “And?”

“That’s about it, so far.”

He stopped, turning to look at her properly. “How old are you?” He asked with a frown.

“Eighteen.”

“Eighteen years since your awakening?”

“Just eighteen.” She wondered what an awakening was.

“Seven hells,” he breathed. “You’re just an infant, aren’t you.”

Tripitaka shrugged uneasily, having no idea what was young for demons. “Sorry,” she offered.

“No, don’t apologise. Look, lets start again. I’m Strike.” He held out his hand.

She hesitantly slid her hand into his. “Tr– Trip. I’m Trip.”

“Pleased to meet you, Trip. Now am I the first god you’ve met?”

Tripitaka thought of Monkey, Sandy and Pigsy, then decided she didn’t want to cause them any trouble if she could help it. “Not the first,” she hedged.  

“Have you had any training? Do you know the ancient language?”

“Know the –” And belatedly, Tripitaka grasped what was happening here.

He doesn’t know she’s a demon.

_He thinks she’s a god._

It was an understandable mistake. She was too strong to be human and a proper demon would have walked past the mayhem, if they weren’t leading it themselves. Yet it was such an obscenely wrong conclusion she literally couldn’t talk for a few seconds.

“I’m not –” She fumbled. “That is, I’m–”

“Hey, relax, it’s fine. Just trying to get an idea of what I’m working with.” Strike patted her shoulder. “Gods aren’t born knowing everything, we have to learn it just like everyone else.”

Tripitaka managed to draw the corners of her mouth back in a rigid smile. She felt a little ill. She should just come clean. But if she did, he might not let her help.

“We should go save that girl,” she said, and Strike smiled in a way that reminded her of Monkey. With a sharp edge of pleasure at the prospect of trouble.

“Just follow my lead, Trip. We’ll have this sorted in no time.”

* * *

NOW 

Tripitaka jerks awake out of nightmare. It's daylight, she has a thumping headache and there's loud voices shouting nearby. 

"....did you _do_?!" 

"Nothing! I swear!"

"My dish towels are covered in blood!" 

"Yeah, but that wasn't me! Tripitaka got shot with a crossbow - "

_"What?!"_

Tripitaka lifts her head, wincing at the sunlight. She's in the tavern, which looks like a riot happened. Someone's made some vague efforts to clean up the food and stack the furniture to the side, but it's far from Monica's usual standards. Also, if the people in the kitchen could be quiet, that would be great. 

She forces herself up, blankets slithering to the floor. She discovers that someone unbraided her hair last night, which was nice of them, and that she's wearing a shirt too long for her. (Maybe Monkey's but most likely Pigsy's due to having sleeves.) Her shoes are gone but her pants are on, so she can only assume it wasn't Monica who dressed her, since Monica would have just shoved into one of her old nightgowns and be done with it.

Those voices still haven't stopped and she tries not to sound like she's contemplating murder when she braces herself upright against the kitchen doorway and says: "Can everyone stop _yelling_."

Jora stops threatening Monkey with his fry pan. "Tripitaka," he says in relief. "You're alive." 

"Should I not be?" It's a genuine question. Last night is a bit muddled, following that stuff Pigsy gave her. She has memories of hiding from the dark in Sandy's bed and using Monkey as a hot water bottle, but isn't sure if that's something she actually did or just a vivid dream. 

"You tell me." Jora shoots a dirty look at Monkey, who cringes a bit. "Yesterday, this fool comes charging in and pawing at you. I take the night off, the next morning Monica is not here, there is blood all over my dish towels and you look like a bloodsucker's been at you." 

"Everything you say is technically true," Monkey says. "But I object to the conclusions you're drawing." 

He twitches as Jora lifts the fry pan and gestures meaningfully. " _Shut it._ " 

Monkey shuts up. It would be funny if Tripitaka wasn't so hungover. While Jora is a huge man, that means next to nothing coming from a human. She's pretty sure that Monkey is intimidated by Jora himself, not any physical threat he poses. 

"You want him gone?" Jora asks her hopefully. "Say the word, he's out." 

Monkey looks plaintively at Tripitaka. It's tempting, but probably unfair to Monkey since she's pretty sure he helped dig a crossbow bolt out of her last night. 

"No, he’s a friend," she says. Then, noticing that someone's made a pot of tea: "I don't suppose I could get a cup of that?" 

"I'll get it!" Monkey says, and Jora slaps his hand away. 

"I'll get it. _You_ wash those dishcloths." Then as Monkey sulkily retreats to the sink, Jora offers a hand to Tripitaka and says gently: "Come sit down, you look like you're about to pass out." 

He pulls out a chair for her and pours her a cup of tea, then starts throwing things into a pan. Tripitaka is so hungry she feels nauseous, like she could start chewing on the table leg, and also like if she so much as looked at food she was going to throw up.  The warm tea helps a little bit, easing her empty stomach.

"Where's Pigsy and Sandy?" She asks between sips.

"Gone looking for Monica," Monkey answers. "No one's seen her since last night." 

Triptiaka nearly spills her tea. _"What?_ What happened?"

"We don't know. She went into the kitchen to get something. Then that fight started and you arrived and we thought maybe she'd gone to find Sandy and Pigsy. Then she still hadn't come back a few hours later, we started getting worried." Monkey looks worried. "Did you see her at all?" 

Tripitaka nods. "When I was coming through the kitchen." 

"Did she say where she was going?" 

"No. I apologized for running off, she said I wasn't much of a demon, and that was more or less it.” Tripitaka pauses and admits: “I was in a hurry. I was trying to get to my moon-spade before the fight finished." 

"Hmm." Monkey flicks her a look like he would like to follow up on that, but doesn't. 

"That settles it then," Jora says firmly, setting down a plate in front of Tripitaka. "She was taken. She would not leave you alone with that ruffian." 

"Who are you calling ruffian?" Monkey demands indignantly. 

"She would not leave you alone with that idiot child," Jora amends. 

"…ruffian is fine." 

Tripitaka looks down at the plate. The savoury smell makes her stomach both clench and growl, and she decides she has to follow one of those impulses. She carefully bites into a piece of bread, chews and swallows. When that doesn't make her stomach rebel, she takes another bite. Then another. Then another. She doesn’t stop for breath until she’s scraping the remains of egg off the empty plate.

“More?” Jora says.

“Please.”

He heaps more food onto her plate, and she would be embarrassed if she wasn’t already eating. 

"Sorry," she says between bites. "I’m so hungry." 

"Pigsy said that was going to happen," Monkey says. "Apparently demons have to eat a lot to build back what they lose after healing. You're going to be like that for a few days." 

Oh. Tripitaka pauses, eying her spoon with less enthusiasm. That explained a few things. After she was hurt on the road, it had felt like she was starving for a week afterward, even if she spent the whole day foraging. And she'd lost a lot of weight, even though she hadn't _thought_ she was eating less. She’d attributed it to stress and weariness and injury all wearing in on her body’s reserves. It hadn't occurred to her that it might be a demon thing.

“It’s okay,” Monkey adds hastily. “It’s nothing bad. Gods do it too, sort of. You’re just on a faster burn.”

Which made her feel slightly better, but not much. She’d lost interest in eating.

She puts her spoon down. “Lets go help Sandy and Pigsy.”


	6. Chapter 6

NOW

Since joining the quest, Sandy has discovered that friends make life easier. Not just in the big epic ways, but in the little things.

For example, Pigsy is strong enough to hold a man upside down over an open sewer grate, leaving Sandy free to sit to the side, sharpening her scythe menacingly.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Kortath shouts frantically.

“Hey, I believe you,” Pigsy tells him. “But it’s not whether about I believe you. It’s about whether _she_ believes you. Does she look convinced?”

Sandy looks up from her scythe to give Kortath her best vacant-eyed death stare.

“You’re crazy,” Kortath squawks. “You’re both crazy!”

Pigsy lets go of a leg. “Oops, looks like my hands are getting tired,” he remarks over Kortath’s panicked screaming.

“Here’s how it is.” Sandy raises her voice to be heard. “You attacked Tripitaka and you were in the tavern when Monica disappeared. That’s what I call an unlikely coincidence.”

“I didn’t touch the tavern keeper! Why would I? It was the demon that was the problem!”

Sandy sighs. She hadn’t expected Kortath to give up answers right away – he’s an expert at dodging blame, and part of that is never admitting he did anything wrong – but the sooner they find Monica, the better. She’s just about to start again with less patience, when she spots two figures coming down the street toward them.

“Hold on.”

“No, I thought I’d let go,” Pigsy retorts. “What is it?”

“Monkey’s here. And he brought Tripitaka.”

“ _What?_ He was supposed to keep her at the tavern!”

“I know!”

In hindsight, Sandy doesn't know why they ever thought that would work. Tripitaka’s always been stubborn and being a demon has just given her better tools to get her way. None of which would be a problem, except apparently she has some sort of moral qualm about harming nasty little toe-rags like Kortath.

Sandy grabs a cloth out of Pigsy’s pocket – not very clean; too bad, so sad – and stuffs it in Korath’s mouth. “Not a word,” she hisses. “Not a single solitary sound, or I let Monkey start asking the questions. Clear?”

Kortath nods unhappily. Maybe he’ll even listen. He’s savvy enough to know that while Sandy and Pigsy will leave him more or less intact (with emphasis on ‘more or less’), Monkey is impulsive enough to do anything.

Sandy hurries to intercept the other two, sweeping her cloak wide to block the line of sight into the alley. “Monkey. Tripitaka. You’re up.” She tries to act like she’s surprised and isn’t sure how well she succeeds. They both give her odd looks, but at least they’re looking at her, not behind her. “How are you feeling?”

Tripitaka gives her an awkward little smile. “Better. Thank you. For…” She gestures vaguely. “You know. Last night.”

Sandy isn’t sure if she means the digging out of the crossbow bolt or letting her share her blankets, so settles for a general: “You’re welcome.”

Tripitaka looks past her. “Is that Pigsy? I should thank him too.”

Sandy steps in the way. “Are you sure you’re feeling alright? You don’t look that well. Maybe you should go back to the tavern and rest.”

“Exactly,” Monkey says, in a tone that suggests this is an argument he’s already tried and lost. “You’ll feel much better if you don’t push yourself.”

“I’m fine,” Tripitaka says. “Honestly.” She tries to step around Sandy again, and frowns when Sandy gets in the way. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing. It’s just good to see you again.”

“You’re acting weird.”

“Sandy’s always weird,” Monkey points out. “Come on, they were selling fruit the next street over. I’ll buy you something –”

Behind Sandy, there’s the muffled sound of someone trying to shout past a rag stuffed between their teeth and Pigsy’s hasty ‘shush!’ does nothing to cover it up.

Tripitka’s eyes widen. “Is that a _person_?” 

“That depends on your definition–” Sandy doesn’t get the chance to finish before Tripitaka shoves past her with surprising strength.

“Pigsy! What are you _doing_? Let him go!”

Pigsy looks apologetically down at Kortath, “I can’t, actually. If I let go, he’s going to fall and it’s a long way down–”

“You know what I mean!” Tripitaka tugs a handful of her hair in frustration. “Take him out of the grate! Right now!”

“You know, Pigsy is a lot older than you,” Monkey points out snippily. “Maybe he knows better than you do and you should be more respectful.” All three of them just stare at him and he gives them a perplexed look: “What?”

“We’ll come back to that,” Pigsy promises him. “In great depth. Tripitaka, we’re trying to get Kortath to tell us what he did with Monica.”

Tripitaka twitches. “Kortath?” She says, like it’s the most insane thing she’s ever heard. “That’s _Kortath_? You think _he_ did it?”

“Why not?” Monkey demands. “He shot you. He’s capable of anything.”

“It’s the oldest trick in the book,” Sandy agrees with a narrow look at the man in question. “Cause a distraction in the front while someone goes around the back. I don’t know why he did it but we’ll get answers soon enough.”

Tripitaka looks utterly shaken, and Sandy feels sorry to expose her to this. Granted everyone starts young these days, but the free-for-all nature of combat is different from the calculated violence of an interrogation.

“You should go and get something to eat,” she says kindly. “Maybe that fruit Monkey was talking about.” She looks pointedly at the young god, who takes the hint and reaches for Tripitaka’s hand.

“Come on. Pigsy and Sandy can take care of this.”

Tripitaka pulls her hand away. “You’ve got it wrong,” she tells them.

“Sorry?”

“Kortath. You’ve got it wrong. I mean, not about the distraction. You were right about that. Just wrong about why.” She pauses a beat, knuckles white where she's gripping her moon-spade. “I – I asked him to pick a fight with Monkey. So I could sneak in through the back and get my bond-weapon.”

“ _You_ arranged that?” Monkey bursts out.

“Yes,” Tripitaka replies, standing in the stiff way of someone determined not to flinch.

“You’re not serious,” Monkey continues, either ignoring or not seeing Sandy’s silent signal to shut up. “Those guys were lowlife scum! If you’re going up against a god as powerful as me, you need to aim higher than that.”  

Tripitaka slowly blinks. “…you’re not angry that I sicced them on you?”

“Don’t change the subject, monk. First step, if you’re looking for mercenaries, don’t go with the first thing on offer. Peruse the room, ask around, see if anyone has worked with them before. Second of all, look for–” He stops, panic flashing across his expression. “What’s wrong? What did I say?”

Tripitaka comes over and wraps her small arms about his chest. “I missed you,” she says against his armor, sounding suspiciously choked up. “That’s all.”

“A-alright…” He tentatively returns the hug, with the confused, faintly worried look of someone who has no earthly idea what’s going on.  

Pigsy is smiling fondly at the pair. “You know, this reminds me of this birthday a few years back. Locke hired some mercenaries to kidnap me for a surprise re–”

“We should probably let Kortath go,” Sandy interrupts, not wanting to ruin the moment with stories about Locke.

“Oh, right.” Pigsy hauls the human out of the grate and dumps him on the ground. “Piss off.”

Kortath yanks the rag out of his mouth with a cough. “What?”

“You’ve been cleared for now. Don’t leave town.” Pigsy gives him a none-too-gentle nudge with his boot.

Unfortunately, Kortath was never one to take a hint. “What,” he snarls, shoving to his feet. “Is _wrong_ with all of you? That demon bitch probably did it hers –”

He cuts off in a gargle as Sandy seizes his throat. “Say it again.” She’s entirely out of patience by this point. “Go on. Say it. I dare you.”

Behind her, someone calls her name and Sandy ignores it. Her anger is a lurking fathomless thing.

She squeezes Kortath a little tighter, just short of choking him. “You try to hurt Tripitaka again – you so much as look at her cross-eyed – I will come looking for you. I’ve no idea what I’d do, but I’ve a feeling it would surprise both of us.” She shoves him away. “ _Go_.”

He doesn’t need to be told a third time. Monkey has to tug Tripitaka back out of the way so she doesn’t get run into. “I thought you were going to kill him,” he says, like he’s impressed and also a little disappointed that she’d stopped.

“Killing humans would set a bad example,” Sandy says, rubbing finger and thumb together and trying to bring herself back out of the depths.

Monkey stares at her for a second, then laughs like she’d made a joke. Tripitaka looks unhappy, Pigsy appraising.

“We should start asking around,” is all he says, picking up his rake. “We didn’t bother when Kortath was our only suspect, but maybe someone saw something.”

* * *

BEFORE

It was surprisingly easy to find the bandit camp. Not that Tripitaka had to do much other than follow Strike, but she was aware that two months ago she'd have been panting and struggling to keep up before they even got half way. 

Now, it felt like she was tentatively waiting for a barrier that just doesn't come. Her body relaxed into the steady run, muscles and lungs working in smooth unison. She could picture herself running all day and feeling only a satisfying ache. 

It was kind of thrilling. 

Strike seemed to know, flicking a smile over his shoulder when they finally stopped. "First time long distance?" 

"Yes." It felt like the first time Tripitaka had smiled in forever. Her cheeks hurt. "I didn't know I could do that!”

He chuckled. "There's going to be a lot of things you didn't know you could do. You're stepping into a whole new world." 

Fortunately he was looking ahead and didn't see Tripitaka's smile fade. She'd almost forgotten for a moment that she wasn't what he thought. 

It hurt to glimpse what her path might have been like if she'd turned out a god instead of a demon. She could see Pigsy lightly teasing her but clearly explaining what to do, Sandy giving some advice that sounded counter-intuitive and turned out to be spot-on. And Monkey – but she tried not to think about Monkey these days. All she could picture was his face twisted in anger. 

"Are we close?" She asked, changing the subject. 

"Just past that rise," Strike ran a hand through his blonde hair, thinking. "There are more tracks here. I'd say there's at least two dozen." 

"Two _dozen_?" 

"Three actually, including the ones we saw. They're probably the source of all the raids in this area. We need to clear them out." 

"Clear them out?" Tripitaka knew she was repeating everything he said, but couldn’t help herself. Yes, she'd outsmarted the Shaman and defeated Davari, but that had always been using her primary weapon; her mind. She’d just grabbed what opportunities came to her and slipped in sideways, underestimated and unseen. This was a whole different battlefield. Literally and figuratively.

Strike saw her expression. "Relax. I'll take care of that part. All you have to do is grab the girl and get her back to the road." 

"Will you be alright fighting that many alone?" 

"There’s only one innocent to worry about this time. Trust me, a well-planned offense is always easier than a surprise defense." 

Tripitaka supposed that makes sense. Part of the reason she'd managed to get access to the Font Demon room at Jade Mountain was because most of Davari's soldiers had been pulled off regular guard duty to help catch Monkey.

"So I'm going in," Strike said, drawing his weapon with a fancy flourish. "And you’re going to…?" It was the type of leading question the Scholar would ask to check she’d been paying attention and Tripitaka hazarded a guess. 

"Sneak in?"

"You're going to wait here. When you hear the fighting start, _then_ sneak in and get the girl. And don't stop running until you reach the caravan." 

"What about you?" 

"I'm old enough to take care of myself. Besides.” He startled her by ruffling her hair. “Jade Mountain would kill me if I let a newly awoken get hurt. There's few enough of us being born these days." 

Guilt twisted Tripitaka's chest and she dropped her gaze. "Okay." She'll tell him the truth after they've saved the girl.

He grinned at her. "Don't look so spooked, Trip. You'll do fine. I've got a good sense for these things."

Tripitaka waited as he disappeared over the rise, palms sweating. She hadn’t been in a fight with this many people before. All the people she’d taken on before were one or two at a time. What if she couldn’t –

She jumped at the sudden yelling and clashing of swords over the ridge. Too late for second-guessing now.

She sneaked up over the ridge, trying to stay low and wishing that she had something to wear other than bright blue monk vestments. At least Strike had the mercenaries' full attention, being on a rampage through the camp. It was the first time she'd actually seen a god fighting humans without pulling any punches and it was unnerving. The people he hit went down and stayed down, shrieking about broken bones or not moving at all. 

She had to force her gaze away from him to scan the camp. It took her a moment to spot the teenage girl huddled to the side, cowering from the chaos. No one seemed to be watching her, so why wasn't she running?  

Don't think about that. _Move_. 

Tripitaka tried to ease down the embankment, but only succeeded in tripping on a root and tumbling the rest of the way down. She swore on reflex before realising she wasn’t hurt. Not even bruised. No one seemed to have noticed her ungraceful arrival, so she decided to keep low, crawling around the back of a tent and up behind the girl, who still hadn't moved. 

The girl squeaked in surprise when Tripitaka slapped a hand over her mouth.  

"Kasi?" Tripitaka asked softly, and the girl nodded. "I'm with Strike. Can you get up?"

She removed her hand and the girl whispered: "They shackled my legs." 

She lifted her feet so that Tripitaka could see two short planks of wood clamped around her ankles, a huge padlock hanging off the side. It was a brutally efficient restraint, making her unable to run or even walk without help.  

Tripitaka decided she didn’t have time to find a key. "I'm going to carry you. Don't wriggle." She switched her moon-spade to her left hand, wrapped her right arm about Kasi's waist and quickly stood to haul her back out of the line of fire. She stopped behind the tents to rearrange, hefting Kasi over one shoulder. 

"You're strong for a girl," Kasi remarked, apparently not bothered about being slung over someone’s shoulder like a sack of meal. "Are you a god too?" 

Tripitaka pretended not to hear the question. "Just hold on." 

She hurried back toward the ridge - and ran slap-bang into mercenary running around the tent. She managed to turn so that she caught the impact on her shoulder instead of Kasi, but the mercenary rebounded, falling down. 

"Get out of the bloody way- " He stopped, eyes widening in recognition. “ _You_.”

Tripitaka’s stomach dropped as she realised she knew him. It was the male bandit who'd killed that monk; the one who’d fled off into the night after seeing her change.

He scrambled backwards, fumbling to draw his sword. “You followed us here! You're going to kill us!” 

"I don't care about you,” Tripitaka said, raising the moon-spade defensively. “Just let me leave with the girl, and I won't hurt you." 

" _Tess!_ " He turned and screamed: "Tess, the demon is back! Tess–" 

Tripitaka swung the moon-spade. She didn’t have the leverage this time so it wasn’t as strong as it could be, but it still knocked him into a tent that collapsed over him like a net. She didn’t wait for him to untangle himself, getting a good grip on the girl and bolting into the trees.

* * *

NOW

Two hours later, and they're no closer to finding Monica than before. Tripitaka could cry in frustration. They've spoken to every house along the street that joins onto the alley, and no one will admit to seeing anything.

"Lot of people coming and going from the tavern," says a cheerful woman with a toddler on her hip and the smell of baking bread coming from the open door behind her. "You tend not to notice after a while." Her eyes measure Tripitaka with frank curiosity. "You're that demon people are talking about? They say a demon and a god got into it at the tavern last night.”

She’s not the first person to ask this question. Tripitaka just smiles politely. “People like to talk. Thank you for your time.”

Down on the street, Monkey is waiting impatiently. “Anything?” He asks.

“Nothing. You?”

“Nothing either. This is ridiculous. I can't believe no one saw anything." 

"It was late. Most people are indoors after sunset." 

"Why?" 

Tripitaka shrugs. "Old habit, I guess." One of Locke's favorite strategies had been to arrest anyone outdoors after dark and then impose exorbitant fines for 'disorderly conduct' or the like. Even with her gone, people couldn't quite let go of the learned instinct that dark was bad. Generally the only people out and about were those already up to no good, like Monica's clientele.

And Tripitaka, of course. (There had been a lonely sort of freedom in walking the empty streets, feeling like the last person in the world). 

Pigsy wanders up, chewing on some fried apple pieces. “Couldn’t find anyone who saw anything. Apple?” He holds the packet out to Monkey, who waves it off irritably.

“Where’d you get those?”

“From a stall. They’re selling them down the street. Pretty good.”

“I can’t believe you’re eating while Monica’s missing.”

“I get hungry when I’m stressed.” He holds the packet out to Tripitaka and she nearly refuses until the warm, delicious smell hits her. There’s a piece of fried apple between her teeth before she’s even made the decision to do it, and a second before she’s finished the first.  

Sandy joins them, seeming in a bit better mood than before. “I think we’re going about this the wrong way,” she announces.

“How’s that?” Pigsy takes an apple slice and passes the packet to Tripitaka. “I’m done. You can have the rest.”

“We should be looking at motive,” Sandy says. “Who has a reason to take Monica?” 

“Or kill her,” Monkey suggests.  

Sandy just shakes her head. “Moving a body would be a pointless risk. If they went to the effort of taking her probably means they want her alive for something.”

“Revenge,” Pigsy says. “Love. Money. Those are the usual three.”

Tripitaka hastily chews a mouthful of apple and swallows so she can point out: “None of this happened until people found out about me.”

Monkey scoffs. “Yeah, but Monica’s the one taken and she's not a demon. That we know of. Is she?” 

“ _No_. I’m saying maybe someone didn’t want to go after me directly and Monica made an easier target.”

“Or someone wanted to hurt Monica for a long time,” Pigsy interjects. “And it was just convenient that a demon and a god were going at it in the next room, distracting everyone.”

Tripitaka deflates. “So it could have just been opportunistic. That’s worse. That means it could be _anyone_.”

“Yeah.” Pigsy scratches his head. “Sorry. These things are usually harder than the stories make them look.”

Tripitaka sighs. In the scrolls, there was always some wise prophet or judge who listened to the problem and then came up with some clever answer or test. If there was more than one possible answer, it was invariably the third. Life, sadly, was not nearly so neat and tidy.  

She reaches into the packet for another apple slice and is surprised to find it empty. She’d bolted through that quickly. She licks her fingers regretfully and wonders if anyone would notice or care if she ate the palm leaf wrapper.

She mustn’t have hidden the impulse well enough because Pigsy tells her: “We’ll stop for lunch soon. In the meantime –” He stops, frowning. “I think someone’s looking for us.”

Tripitaka looks up to see a blue-clad figure hurrying down the street. As the monk draws closer, she recognises the young man who's always on duty at the door. He looks flustered, making a cursory bow to the gods without really looking at them. 

“Tripitaka, you are needed at the monastery.”

“What’s wrong?” Tripitaka demands, straightening and tossing the palm leaf aside. Seven hells, if someone had gone after Monica and then the monks…

“What?” The monk twitches, then seems to realise what she’s asking. “No, no one is hurt. You are needed, that is all.”

Relieved, Tripitaka relaxes. “Can it wait until tomorrow?” She says apologetically. “I'm a little busy right now. A woman’s gone missing.”

“I was told it was urgent.”

Tripitaka sighs. Chances are, the head monk just wants to make sure she’s alright. She'd arrived in such a fluster yesterday, and she can only imagine what rumours he’s heard since then. But there is the off-chance that he’s heard something useful for their investigation.

She turns to the others. "I'll be back in an hour. You keep looking."

“I'll come with you,” Sandy says immediately.

Tripitaka starts to argue, then recalls that she was shot in the back last night, and that having a god along might deter any follow-up attempts, and says: “I’d appreciate that.”

"The invitation was just for you," the monk tells Tripitaka apologetically. It's rather rude for a monk to ignore a god, and even Sandy seems faintly taken aback. 

“Aren't gods always welcome at monasteries?” She asks with a confused frown. 

“Yes,” the monk says with clear reluctance. “But... nevermind. We should hurry.”  

He sets off, beckoning for Tripitaka to follow him. Odd little man, she thinks. Perhaps he has gotten some strange idea about what the gods were doing to her. He wouldn’t be the only one. When Monkey was in the bathhouse Jorah had worriedly asked if she was _certain_ that the god hadn’t done anything untoward. (Untoward apparently meaning anything from sex to some kind of archaic blood sacrifice that somehow involved his dish towels.)

"We won't be long,” she tells Monkey and Pigsy.

“Watch your back,” Monkey says, making a motion as if he were going to pat her shoulder, then thought the better of it. 

Pigsy just tells her. "Ask those monks if they've heard anything about someone with a grudge against the tavernkeeper. Monks have a bigger ear for gossip than bored housewives." 

"Thanks," Tripitaka tells him dryly, wondering if he ever thought that about her, back when she was posing as a monk.

It's an awkwardly silent walk. The young monk doesn't seem inclined to talk, while Tripitaka doesn't quite know what to say to Sandy. The river god had been acting odder than usual this morning, shifting between brooding silently to jagged bursts of temper that only Tripitaka seemed immune to.

Just as she she’s wondering if talking about the weather would be too broad a topic, Sandy abruptly comes out with: “It’s not your fault.”

“What?”

“What you said before. About Monica being taken because you’re a demon. Even if that’s so, it’s not your fault.”

Tripitaka turns her attention ahead. “In a way it would be. If I weren’t a demon, none of this might have happened.”

“People thought I was a demon, and they threw stones and tried to hurt me. Does that make it my fault?”

“No... but you weren’t really a demon. That’s different.”

“Is it?” Sandy tilts her head like a bird. “I look more like a typical demon than you do. I’m tall and pale. I wield a blade. I’ve done things more terrible than you know. Probably more terrible than even I know. But by an accident of birth, I am a god and you are a demon.”

“What are you saying?” Tripitaka asks uneasily.

“Nothing,” Sandy says after a moment. “Just that if you take other people’s hate onto your shoulders, you’ll go mad. Trust me on that.”

Tripitaka supposes Sandy would be the expert there. She lets half a minute of silence pass before she has to ask: “What you said before, about birth…”

“Yes?”

“Where do demons come from?” She sees the surprise in Sandy’s face and tries to explain herself. “Are we born like humans, or do we just appear? The Scholar never said and I keep thinking this has to be it. The answer. Why my mother left me.” 

“You’re born,” Sandy says slowly. “But…Tripitaka, why would you think your mother would know? Even we didn’t pick it, and frankly, we’re the first people who should notice something like that.” 

Only to Sandy could Tripitaka say this next part.

“Because maybe my father was.”

The words feel heavy and grotesque in her mouth, like vomit. And like vomit, once she’s started, it’s hard to stop, words surging out of her like bile.

“Maybe he… hurt her, in the raids, and that’s what she was running from. Or maybe _she_ was the demon and the Scholar made up the whole story about my being left on the doorstep because he stole me. Maybe my real mother is out there somewhere looking for me and I was meant to be a weapon for the Resistance or some kind of experiment or…”

She doesn’t realise she’s crying until Sandy stops her with a hand on her shoulder. She draws Tripitaka close and Tripitaka can’t help but lean against the taller woman’s shoulder, drawing deep shuddering breaths. Sandy pats her back unhurriedly, like they have all the time in the world. 

“Pigsy wanted to have this talk with you this morning,” she says eventually. “I told him to hold off until you were ready to hear it, but I think I was wrong. You’re ready now, aren’t you?” 

Tripitaka nods. Whatever horrors the truth holds, it would be better than these endless questions, this circle of ideas each more terrible than the last.

The monk interrupts diffidently: “They’re waiting for us at the monastery…”

“It can wait,” Sandy tells him, a little sharply. She takes Tripitaka’s hand and leads her over to the fountain where they sit beside the flowing water. There’s no one else in earshot. “I thought the same thing as you, for a long time. I thought my father must not have been my father. That’s why he was so easily able to leave me. Maybe it’s even what he thought. But it’s not true, and nor are all the awful things you’ve been thinking."  

“How do you know?” Tripitaka asks, sniffling and wiping her nose on her sleeve. Her eyes won’t stop tearing up. 

“Because gods and demons – all of us – are born to human families. We can only have children with humans and our children, if we have them, are human as well.” Sandy squeezes Tripitaka’s knee. “I promise you, your parents were human. How and why they left you, I cannot guess. But neither of them were demons.”

Tripitaka once had found a very faded map on an ancient scroll. She’d spent ages trying to work out what land it correlated to until she finally made out the name of an island and realised it was a sea map. This is the same feeling; a shift in perspective.

“But…” She sifted pieces of information around in her head, testing the logic. She knew from Monkey that gods gave little importance to blood relationships, that their society had centred about teacher-student lineage. At the time she’d thought it a little odd (surely some gods married and had children) but it all made perfect sense if they _couldn’t_ have children like themselves. In a society like that, adoption would be the norm.

It also perfectly aligned with everything she’d witnessed among Davari’s followers. None of them seemed to have spouses or children or siblings or parents. Every one of them seemed inhumanly detached, both from humans and each other, focused solely on their own ambitions and appetites.

“Are you sure?” She asks, hearing the high uncertain note in her own voice. “Are you absolutely sure?”

“Yes,” Sandy replies firmly. “You might have a demon in your family tree somewhere – a grandparent or great grandparent perhaps. That’s often how it goes. But it doesn’t breed true to the first generation.”

A demon as a grandparent. Not ideal. But still a hundred times better than anything else Tripitaka had been thinking. She’d started to wonder if maybe her father could be someone like Raxion amusing himself in his off-time. In her more wild flights of fancy, she’d wondered if _Locke_ could be her mother. To know otherwise was a relief so great she felt a bit sick.

It also meant that she was probably exactly what the Scholar said; a random child left on his doorstep. It didn’t explain how he’d known what she was, but maybe… maybe he’d just worked it out? Monkey had said that young demons and gods didn’t get sick or hurt the way human ones did. She could think of at least three or four incidents during her childhood that were probably due to her being a demon, and there were probably others she didn’t remember. Maybe he’d noticed. Maybe he'd suspected and hadn't wanted to worry her in case he was wrong. 

Tripitaka splashes her face in the fountain. As she wipes the water from her eyes, a new thought occurs to her.

“So if someone were to use the phrase ‘ _children of the gods_ ’ they would just be talking about regular humans, right? Or not regular humans, just humans that happened to be related to gods?”

“I suppose,” Sandy replies cautiously. “Why?”

“There’s this scroll that the monastery is translating. We couldn’t figure out this one phrase, but now that I know, that will help with–”

She stops as Sandy laughs. Tripitaka is slightly offended; she doesn’t know what she said that was so funny. 

“You haven’t changed the slightest bit,” the river god says as she stands up. “Come on. Maybe we can have a look at this scroll while I’m there and work it out together.”

* * *

Maybe it was the talk or the chance to cry, or maybe the fresh pastries that Sandy bought on the way, but by the time they reach the monastery, Tripitaka is feeling a hundred times better. Optimistic even. 

“They might offer us tea,” she warns Sandy in an undertone as the monk opens the door. “You should decline unless you want it really, really bitter.”

“Like how you have it in the mornings?”

“Worse. They have time to steep it properly.”

Sandy winces. “I’ll say no then.”

Inside, the front entrance is empty, which wasn’t unusual. The monks weren’t allowed to idle about and were usually either in prayer, study or begging about town.

“You can go through to the library,” the monk says, closing the door behind them. “Perhaps the river god would like a chance to look at our shrine in the meantime...?”

“The river god would not,” Sandy retorts over her shoulder as she follows Tripitaka into the winding passageways of the monastery.

“They’re usually nicer,” Tripitaka apologises. “I think I might have given them the wrong impression yesterday, about why you were after me.”

“Hmm. I suppose I can find a reason to step away for a few minutes, so you can set their minds at ease.” 

Tripitaka nods thoughtfully as they reach the library door. “That might be a good –” Her voice stutters and dies as the library door opens.

There are two people seated waiting for them. One is the head monk, sitting stiffly upright, his mouth drawn tight an expression of deep unease. The other is a god in fancy armour, long golden hair framing handsome features. A hand is idly tapping the weapon resting across his knees and his blue eyes are cold as he says:

“Hello, Trip.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sandy is explaining demon reproduction as best she can without an understanding of genetics. It’s akin to a recessive trait like red hair, but as demons can only reproduce with humans it barely ever manifests in their direct offspring. Generally it only appears when two humans carrying the dormant trait have children together. Gods are more or less the same, though the trait involved for them is a separate one, and there’s no such thing as a god/demon hybrid. (Sorry.)
> 
> This means that birthrates are very low (perhaps one in a hundred, if that), unless you have strategies to weigh the odds in your favour. Which is a story for another fic and another day.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're almost at the end! This is stretching out longer than I expected. I only had one more planned chapter, but the way this is going, there might be two.

**BEFORE**

Tripitaka was running for nearly fifteen minutes before it dawned on her that she didn’t know where she was going.

"What's wrong?" Kasi asked when Tripitaka slowed to a stop. 

"Just trying to remember the way back to the road." Tripitaka realized what that sounded like and added hastily: "I'll work it out.”

"Okay, but in the meantime, can you put me down? This is uncomfortable."  

Tripitaka hastily set the girl down. "I really will work it out. Worst comes to worst, we can wait for the sun to set and follow it west."

"Who cares? I'd rather be lost than stay back there." Kasi flipped her beaded braids back to look at Tripitaka with shining eyes. "That was _amazing_. Is that your weapon? Do you have special powers?" 

Tripitaka had the uncomfortable sensation of looking in a mirror. She could be looking at herself after Monkey swooped in and rescued her from the Font Demon. Though she did feel that she’d been _slightly_ more professional about it. She hadn’t gone kissing anyone without warning.

"I just carried you," she mumbled. "Strike did the real work." 

The girl scrunched her nose to show what she thought of that. "Strike is old and stuffy. And you're much prettier." 

"Really." Tripitaka was amused despite herself. Strike didn't look any older than Gwen had, though that meant very little among gods. He could be as old as the hills for all Tripitaka knew. "He's been very kind to me so far."

"Probably because you're a god. He thinks all humans are stupid." Kasi looked down at the stocks about her ankles. "I don't suppose you can get these off?" 

"Maybe." Tripitaka knelt down for a better look. "That wood around the lock is old. I might be strong enough to break it open." 

It was trickier than she expected, breaking the wood without risking breaking Kasi's ankles. It took about an hour to work it out and she had to use her moon-spade, but Kasi didn’t seem to mind the wait, jumping from one subject to another like a bird hopping branches. She asked some uncomfortable questions about being a god, but didn’t stop talking long enough to hear the answers, so Tripitaka actually didn’t have to say much.

She learned from the girl’s chatter that word of Davari's fall had spread far and wide. Kasi's family had met Strike on the road to Jade Mountain and joined up for protection. From what Kasi said, Tripitaka got the idea that he was a bit of a snob where humans were concerned. 

"Monkey was a bit like that too," she said without thinking. 

Kasi drew a sharp, delighted breath. "You know the Monkey King?!"

"We've met." 

"What was he _like_?" 

Kasi sounded like she was about to swoon and it was suddenly very tempting to tell the story of the time Monkey walked into a tree because he was showing off, or the time he nearly lost their laundry in the river.

"Handsome," Tripitaka said, trying for scrupulous honesty. "A great fighter. He has a cloud that can take him anywhere he wants to go." 

Kasi sighed. "I wish he were at Jade Mountain so I could meet him." 

"Thank your stars," Tripitaka muttered. Then, trying to gentle her words and temper Kasi’s expectations: "He's just a person like anyone else. He can be unkind and cruel and... unforgiving of mistakes. Even mistakes people didn't know they were making." 

"Oh." Kasi looked like she was about to ask something, then – for a mercy – didn’t. "Tell me about Jade Mountain then." 

They killed time with talk of Jade Mountain until the sun had sunk far enough that they could follow the fading light west, then by the stars as darkness fell. Kasi refused to be carried this time and insisted on walking on her own two feet. It took much longer than Tripitaka had hoped for and she was relieved when they finally got out of the trees onto the open road.

Kasi cried out in delight when they spotted the lights of the caravan in the distance. "Finally! I'm so thirsty. I never want to walk again."  

Tripitaka wasn’t that tired, but she wouldn't say no to a sit down. Maybe she could wait until tomorrow morning before confessing to Strike. Maybe he would let her come to Jade Mountain anyway. Sure, Monkey had said there wasn't a cure, but maybe that was because no one had ever looked for one before.

Voices rose as they approached, and people hurried out to meet them. The old man from before engulfed Kasi in a hug and asked what took so long, if she was hurt, was she hungry, did she want something to eat. (Tripitaka started to see where Kasi got the habit of talking from).

"Strike was back hours ago!" He said, finally managing to return to his initial question.

"That was my fault," Tripitaka confessed. "We got lost." 

She wasn’t expecting the old man to suddenly hug her as well. "Thank you," he breathed. " _Thank you_." 

Tripitaka watched him and Kasi go back to the caravan, feeling... something. If she wasn't a demon, she wouldn't have been able to help them. She couldn't have fought off the bandits, or chased them to their lair, or carried Kasi to safety.

So maybe... maybe this thing that happened to her wasn't all bad? She could do good things with this. Help people. 

She recognized Strike approaching in the dark by the gleam of his armor. "I told you to come straight back," he bit out, sounding like the Scholar the first time she went cliff-climbing without telling him.

"I'm sorry." Tripitaka’s elation faded, realizing how she must have worried him. "I lost the trail. We had to wait for the sun to come down to find the way back." 

Strike said nothing for a moment. She couldn’t make out his expression in the gloom but abruptly he said "Come with me," and walked back to the caravan.

She followed, fairly certain he wasn’t finished. It was odd and a little demeaning to be talked down to like a child, but maybe by his standards she _was_ a child. Maybe you had to be hundreds and hundreds of years old before you were grown up by god standards.

There was no one else at the campfire and Strike pointed to a fallen tree serving as a seat. "Sit."   

Tripitaka repressed a sigh – it looked like she was in for a lecture – and leaned her moon-spade against a tree before sitting where he indicated.

"What happened in the forest?" He asked.

"I told you, we got lost." 

"So if I asked Kasi, she'd say the same thing." 

"Yes." Tripitaka was puzzled by the line of questioning. "Why? What did you think I was doing?" 

He didn’t answer immediately, absently tapping his bond-weapon against his thigh and she abruptly remembered the right word for it. A baton. It was called a baton. (She didn’t know why she was remembering that now).

"I questioned some of the bandits," he said finally. "Two of them said they knew you." 

Tripitaka’s stomach lurched in horror. Explanations jumped to her lips but all that came out was a soft "…what?"

"They had a very interesting story for me. They said that you’d met them before. That you were a demon and you killed a monk." 

Even in her horror, Tripitaka couldn’t let that falsehood go. “I did not!"

"Then why do you have a monk's staff?" 

Tripitaka had no explanation that wasn’t awful. She couldn’t deny stealing the belonging of a dead man; technically it was true. And how could she explain turning it into her bond-weapon? She still had no idea how she’d done that.

"You're just going to take their word for it?" She said, switching tactics. "They're bandits. They stole a girl and the seven hells know what else they've done." 

Strike studied her for a long moment, the firelight flickering across his face. "No," he said finally. "Of course I wouldn't just take their word." 

He turned and picked up her moon-spade. 

Tripitaka yelped, jumping to her feet. She'd never known the other gods to touch a stranger's bond-weapon unless it was an emergency, and she'd just assumed there was some kind of taboo. Seven hells, why hadn't she taken more care? Why had she thought she could pass for even a minute? 

“I didn’t do anything,” she tried to explain as Strike's expression twisted in revulsion, disappointment and anger. “I was just trying to help.”

He didn’t seem to hear her. "Mud," he said, looking at the moon-spade with naked loathing. "Always mud." 

And tossed it on the fire. 

Tripitaka shrieked and lunged for it, heedless of the flames. She was just dragging it out when something slammed into the side of her face.

At least, that's what she realised a moment later, when she found herself on the ground. Her left eye was refusing to open and for a few seconds there was no pain, just a sense of pressure that suddenly burst into searing agony. Someone was screaming; it might have been her. 

A boot slammed into her side. "Shut up," a voice was yelling. "Shut _up_ , you stupid rinse of clay. We should have killed your ancestors when they crawled out of the Craftsman’s workshop–”

Tripitaka recalled what Sandy once told her and curled up, using her arms and legs to protect her head and soft inner body. She caught the next kick on her left arm, and the next one on her shoulder. She has no idea what to do, no room for thought beyond riding it out and waiting for it to be over.

Then just as suddenly as it started, it stopped. The only sound was her own sobbing.

When she finally managed to look up, her one working eye streaming with tears, Strike was sprawled unconscious on the ground, blood in his hair. Kasi was standing over him, holding Tripitaka’s bond-weapon and a look of furious anger on her young face as she kicked at him ineffectively.

"Bastard!" She spat. “Hypocritical bastard!” She kicked him again, this time in a place that would have had him in agony had he been awake, god or no god. Tripitaka wondered if she should be doing something. Perhaps she would once she figured out what that should be. 

 _He attacked me,_ she thought, shaking fingers touching her left cheek. _He attacked me_. It didn’t seem real despite the frighteningly large wound. It felt hot like a burn mark and touching it made her almost black out from the pain. An inch higher and she’d have lost that eye.

Had he done that deliberately? Had Strike just tried to blind her?

Helpful hands suddenly drew Tripitaka to her feet. She nearly hit out before recognizing Kasi’s father.

"You need to go," the old man told her.

"Go?"

"Kasi hit Strike with your weapon, but I don't know how long he'll stay out. You need to go before he wakes." He draped Tripitaka’s forgotten satchel over her shoulder. "Hurry. If he finds you, he'll kill you." 

 _He'll kill you._ Strike hadn’t been trying to blind her after all. At least that wasn’t his ultimate goal. He’d been trying to disable her so he could kill her easier. She must have seen the gods do the same things a million times; aiming for weak spots to buy themselves an opening.

For the first time, Tripitaka truly grasped what Monkey had been telling her. She was a demon, and they were gods, and if Kasi hadn’t intervened, she’d be dead right now.

"Thank you," she said faintly to the old man.

He wouldn’t meet her eyes. "I won't ask what you were planning, but you saved my Kasi, and that means something. Now go. Please. Just go." 

She finally recognized the fear in his voice. "I'll go,” she promised. “I’m going.”

She groped for her moon-spade and Kasi gave it to her, starting to say something before her father drew her back out of reach. Tripitaka tried not to look at them as she went. Not that she could see much anyway. She couldn’t see out of one eye, and the other wouldn’t stop watering. It felt like she was going blind.

She nearly tripped over something and bent down to pick it up. Her groping fingertips found a cylindrical shape in the dark. Strike’s baton. The sharp taste of salt suddenly flooded her mouth, like swallowing a mouthful of seawater. The taste of oceans and tears.

The thought passed through her mind: _so that’s what happens_. She’d wondered what happened when demons touched the bond-weapons of gods. Apparently even at the most basic, benign form of contact, their natures rejected each other.

She threw the baton off into the dark and kept walking. East.

* * *

 **NOW**  

“I told you not to do anything,” the head monk snaps, and Tripitaka vaguely registers that the young monk is cowering behind them.

“I’m sorry,” he says miserably. “He said he wouldn’t hurt anyone if I obeyed.”

Tripitaka can’t speak to answer, but if she could, she’d tell him it was alright. Enough monks had been hurt protecting her. She just can’t get the words out. It’s like she’s been paralyzed, unable to do anything except stare at Strike.

He still looks the same as before. Handsome in a fine-boned way, armor polished to a gleam, like a picture out of a book depicting better times. The only difference is that his blue eyes are no longer warm when he looks at her. They make her think of the Font Demon, with that impersonal predatory intent that looks without actually seeing her.

Then Sandy’s hand is on her elbow, none-too-subtly drawing Tripitaka behind her. “Who are you?” She demands.

Strike’s gaze shifts from Tripitaka to Sandy and his expression softens. “You must be Sandy.” He rises to his feet, and Tripitaka can’t help shrinking back. “I apologize. This wasn’t what I intended. I told the monk to bring the demon alone."

“I tried,” the young monk says. “The river god wouldn’t –”

Strike gestures for silence, gaze never leaving Sandy. “Perhaps it’s for the best though. I have heard good things of you. Perhaps you will see things more clearly than the others.”

He’s holding the baton loosely in one hand and Tripitaka finds herself unable to look away, remembering the moments after impact when she hadn’t been able to feel anything, then the searing pain like fire. She hadn’t been able to see out of that eye for three days afterward, the whole thing swollen shut by infection.

“You still haven’t introduced yourself,” Sandy says menacingly. “Who _are_ you?”

He gives her the same charming smile he’d given Tripitaka when they first met ( _“It’s pretty obvious what you are”_ ) and says: “You’re right, that was manner-less of me. My name is Strike –”

Sandy jerks her scythe up into a fighting position. “Tripitaka, run,” she says over her shoulder. “Go find Monkey and Pigsy."

Tripitaka stares uncomprehendingly at the back of the river god’s head. _Sandy knows Strike?_

Strike sighs. “I can see the demon has already poisoned you against me.”

“She didn’t have to,” Sandy spits, glaring at him over her scythe. “I know what you did. Attacking a newly awakened. You’re nothing but a worthless cast-off from your teacher’s line.”

The last part is said in the ancient language and it must be some kind of ritual insult, going by the flash of displeasure that crosses Strike’s face. “I don’t like fighting my own kind,” he says with terrifying patience. “There’s few enough of us nowadays to be killing each other over a demon.”

“I agree. Leave, and I won’t kill you. _Tripitaka, why are you till here?_ I told you to run!”

Tripitaka finally manages to speak. “I didn’t tell you about Strike.” It comes out as a whisper.

Sandy hesitates. “What?”

“I didn’t tell you about Strike. I didn’t tell _anyone_ , not even Monica. How do you know what happened?”

She’d been so careful to keep it to herself. She hadn’t wanted to make trouble. She’d just wanted it to go away and not have happened. Half the time she could nearly convince herself it was some nightmare that happened to somebody else.

Sandy hasn’t yet answered the question and Tripitaka prompts: “Sandy?”

“I – I read your scrolls.”

“You read my –” The blood drains from Tripitaka’s face. She honestly doesn’t know what’s worse, that Strike is here, or that Sandy had read the terrible, personal things she’d written when she was at her lowest. All that anger and fear and grief vented onto the page. “That was private,” she manages.

“I know, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. You can yell at me later. Just _please_ go.”

“Why are you apologizing to her?” Strike sounds honestly puzzled. “I’ve heard of you. The river god. The scourge of demons. The nightmare that nightmares fear.”

“Shut up!” Sandy shouts at him. 

“I just don’t understand. You should have killed her the second she betrayed herself –”

Sandy slams him through a wall. It’s so fast, Tripitaka doesn’t see her move. It’s just a blur of movement followed by a crash and splintering wood, and suddenly the two gods are gone and there’s a hole in the wall.

“Mother of hell!” The head monk shouts, from where he’s been knocked to the floor. _“Take it outside!”_

“High one!” The young monk hurries to help him up. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Though I have my doubts about you. What were you thinking, listening to that lunatic–?” He suddenly seems to register Tripitaka’s presence in the doorway. “Girl, _what are you still doing here_? The river god told you to run!”

She flinches at a series of crashes in the next room. “I brought this trouble on you,” she says faintly. And she’d promised so faithfully that it wouldn’t rebound on the monks this time.

The head monk hustles her to the door. “Trust me, this place has seen worse than a madman with a stick. Go find the Monkey King, _quickly_ , before Strike remembers you’re here.”

Too late. They’re just hurrying toward the entrance when there’s a crash and Strike bursts right through a wall. His nose has been broken and blood is seeping out of one nostril.

“Going somewhere?” He snarls.

Tripitaka raises her moon-spade and tells the monks: “Go.” As they run back the way they came, she tells the god: “I don’t want to fight you.”

“Then you shouldn’t have tried to pass yourself off as one of us.” He spits to the side as he advances. “A thing like _you_ , playing at being a god. To think I actually considered apprenticing you!”

“I didn’t mean to lie. I was going to tell you, after we rescued Kasi –”

“Always the same old story. More excuses. More lies. You people just can’t help yourselves, can you.”

He lunges for her and she darts into the library. She’s just ducking through the hole in the wall when he grabs her ankle.

“Get back here, you little –”

This time she doesn’t bother struggling, just kicks him in the face as hard as she can. He howls in pain, falling back, and she scrambles into the next room.

Sandy’s on the ground, unconscious or dazed. Tripitaka has only a second to assess her surroundings and come up with a solution before Strike punches his way through the wall a third time.

By then she’s standing over Sandy, her moon-spade pressed against the god’s throat.

“Come any closer and I’ll kill her.”

That gives him pause. “You wouldn’t.”

Obviously. “I guess it depends on what you believe," Tripitaka says, trying to brazen it out. "If you believe a demon couldn’t possibly care about a god, stay there. But if you come over here, you’ll be admitting that I _do_ care, that I’m not what you say I am.”

He glances down at Sandy, baton tapping absently against his thigh as he thinks it over. “Or I think the sacrifice is worth it," he points out. 

“Is it? You said it yourself. There’s not too many of you being born these days.”

She doesn’t really expect it to work. The idea of actually hurting Sandy is so ridiculous, she half-expects him to laugh at such an obvious bluff and kill her anyway. But he stays where he is, pinching his nose to staunch the flow of blood.

He doesn’t look so invulnerable anymore, covered in dust and bleeding from his face. Even his armor has taken a battering, Sandy’s onslaught having left a deep crack in the metal of his breastplate. He looks less like a god out of a story and more like the ones at Jade Mountain, who Tripitaka knew all too well could be hurt. Maybe she can reason with him now.

“Why are you doing this?” She says. “I left. I didn’t hurt anyone. I’m not that powerful or important. Why come after me?”

“On that you are correct.”  He picks up a cloth from a nearby table to clean himself up. “You were entirely irrelevant to me, Trip, until I got to Jade Mountain and heard the story of the demon wearing monk’s clothing. Our so-called Tripitaka.”

Tripitaka’s face turns hot. “I didn’t know what I was when I took the name.”

“Then why are you still using it?”

She has no answer for that. She’d meant to stop using it. She’d meant to leave it behind in that grave with that poor, dead monk. She’d just never been able to bring herself to do it.

He drops the bloodied cloth dangerously close to a manuscript. “I have to admire your gall. Not only did you pose as a god. You posed as the hope of gods. You do your people proud.”

Tripitaka’s vision blurs. Don’t cry, she wills herself. _Don’t_ cry.

Beneath her, Sandy groans and stirs. Strike’s gaze sharpens and Tripitaka hastily throws out the first question she can think of that he might care to answer, that might buy her time.

“How did Jade Mountain even know what I did? I never stopped there. I went around.”

“Those three dupes that call you their friend. I missed them by a single day. Apparently they arrived all _frantic_ that they’d lost Tripitaka right on the cusp of her awakening.” He bares his teeth at her. “Personally I’d have done you the mercy of putting you down before then, but it seems they’d prefer you to suffer.”

Tripitaka ignores the last part, focusing on the more important aspect.

“…they told Jade Mountain about me?”

It’s yet another blow on top of many. Even after everything, she’d held onto the pleasant idea that at least she’d kept the first Tripitaka’s legacy intact. She could quietly disappear from the story and let his name carry on. Apparently not. Apparently she’s smeared that as well, by association.

Strike scoffs. “It was the one thing they did right. At least if they didn’t have the stomach for it, another god could do what was necessary. I followed them, waiting for them to lead me to you. Which they did, eventually. Yet even then, they still managed to surprise me with how low they sunk. Imagine my reaction to seeing the Monkey King rolling around on the tavern floor with a demon, like a pig wallowing in _filth_.”

Tripitaka flinches at the raw disgust in his voice. “I’m sorry for what the demons did to you,” she says. “But I’m not like them. I don’t want anything to do with them.”

“For now. You always turn in the end. You can’t help it.” Strike shakes his head. “It’s our fault really, thinking that we could break the laws of nature and get away with it. And we’ve suffered for it ever since, along with you and every other life our struggle has touched.”

“…what?” Now Tripitaka has no idea what he’s talking about. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying let me end it.” The floorboards creak as he steps closer. His voice is almost kind now. “You’ve suffered, Trip. Admit it. Ever since you awoke, your life has been nothing but misery on yourself and everyone around you. And you’re young yet. Think of the trouble you’ve brought down on the tavernkeeper and the monks and imagine six hundred years of that.”

Tripitaka’s grip tightens convulsively on her moon-spade. “What?”

“I’ll make it quick. Better to end it now than –”

“Not that part. What was that about Monica?”

He’s silent, but that’s fine. Tripitaka knows what’s going on now. It’s like a sudden burst of clarity. The fog of terror falls away and she’s seeing clearly for the first time in two days.

“You took Monica, didn’t you.” Something hard and powerful boils within her, burning away the last of the fog. “Where is she?”

“Safe.”

“I didn’t ask that. I asked where she is.”

“Step away from the river god and I’ll tell you.”

Tripitaka lifts her moon-spade to point the metal head at him. “I don’t believe you,” she says. Rage makes her voice flat and unyielding.

“I didn’t hurt the tavernkeeper,” he says with a dismissive gesture. “I’m not a monster. I just needed her out of the way so she wouldn’t warn your bodyguards.” He says it quite matter-of-factly, like it’s an entirely reasonable course of action. Kidnap a human from her own home. Not even a hint of shame or discomfort.

“You’re supposed to be good.” The words come out before she’s even aware of thinking them, sour with sorrow and grief and sheer disappointment. “Gods are supposed to be kind and brave and – and make the world _better_ , not kidnap and terrorize people. But you? You’re as bad as the demons. You might even be worse. At least they admitted what they were.”

Strike stills. “You compare me to those creatures.”

“I overthrew those creatures,” Tripitaka retorts.  “I was there in Jade Mountain, fighting alongside the gods. Where were you, Strike?”

She only means to respond to his accusations, to make it clear where they stand. She’s taken off-guard when he lunges at her and it’s mostly reflex when she lashes out with the moon-spade.

Strike roars in pain and lurches back, clutching at his face. “My eye!” He howls. “You got my eye, you filthy bitch!”

Paralysed by the sight of blood, Tripitaka doesn’t move. Then Sandy is suddenly on her feet, ramming a shoulder into Strike and driving him backwards.

“Go!” She yells and this time Tripitaka listens.

* * *

Monkey hears Tripitaka yelling for him from several streets over. He summons his cloud and skims over the rooftops until he finds her, running like a tiger with its tail on fire.

When she sees him coming, she doesn’t slow or wait for him to lower the cloud. She jumps onto a wall and from there onto a rooftop. He recognizes what she’s doing a split second before she launches herself into his arms. At least this time he remembers to brace properly. 

“What happened?” He asks, holding her tight, mind still half on how nimbly she’d gotten onto that rooftop. Training her is going to be even more fun than he initially thought.

Then he notices that she’s shaking, not so much clutching him helplessly as clamped on like a terrified cat. If she had claws, they’d be digging right through his armour.

“The monastery,” she says. “Sandy’s fighting Strike.”

“Who?”

“A god. He – it doesn’t matter. He’s after me and now Sandy is fighting him.”  

Several pieces of information click together in Monkey’s head. _Son of a bitch_. Looks like he won’t need to go hunting for that name after all.

“Hop on my back.” It only takes a second for her to scramble around onto his back, gripping his waist with her knees and clamping her arms about his chest. She tucks her moon-spade across his shoulders, out of the way of his elbows or legs.

“Where are you going?” She demands as the cloud starts to move. “The monastery is back that way!”

“I’m going to get Pigsy.” Monkey lowers the cloud as he spots the god and shouts: “Sandy’s in trouble. Get on!”

“How?” Pigsy demands. Monkey holds out his hand with an impatient look, and Pigsy winces. “Great. This again.” The cloud won’t let anyone except Monkey stand on it, but it will let him carry someone provided he’s strong enough.

Monkey is very, very strong.

“I don’t like this!” Pigsy shouts a few seconds later, dangling from Monkey’s hand as the cloud speeds across the city.

“Stop whining!” Monkey tells him. Tripitaka is clinging to his back, her breath warm against the back of his neck, and if it weren’t an emergency, this might just be the best feeling ever. They are _definitely_ doing this again. 

They reach the monastery just as two figures crash through the monastery doors into the street. People scatter with shrieks of surprise. Monkey recognizes Sandy, but the other god is a mystery to him. Tall and pale, with fancy armor of the type that Monkey hasn’t seen since he was imprisoned in rock. Looks like he’s taken some damage too, with the blood on his face –

“Stay up here with Tripitaka,” Pigsy says suddenly, peering down.

“What? But he’s –”

“For once in your life, don’t argue with me. Keep her up here where it’s safe. Now drop me!”

So Monkey drops him. Right on top of the strange god.

The impact kicks up a haze of dust from the dry street and Monkey raises the cloud up far past the rooftops.

“What are you doing?” Tripitaka demands in his ear. “We need to get down there." 

“Pigsy said to stay up here.”

“Since when do you listen to Pigsy?”

“I listen to Pigsy all the time!”

“That is such a lie.”

“Hey, you don’t listen to him either.”

She huffs an angry breath. “Monkey, our friends are down there!”

“Pigsy just body slammed a guy from fifty feet up. I think they’re doing fine.”

It’s an uncomfortable feeling, having a woman seething an inch behind your neck. Monkey’s pretty sure if he hadn’t taken them up so high, she’d have jumped off and hoped for the best. 

“Look,” he says, because he might agree with Pigsy, but he’s not a complete jerk. “If you _really_ want me to go down, I will. I just don’t think it’s a good idea to put you down in range of the person who’s trying to kill you. Two on one is good odds, and you being there will just divide their focus.”

A pause. “A planned offence is easier than a surprise defense,” she murmurs.

“Yeah, exactly.” He’s a bit surprised to hear it coming from her. It’s something they used to teach at Jade Mountain. “Where’d you hear that?”

“Strike.”

Tripitaka doesn’t elaborate, but Monkey decides that now’s a good time to get the rest of the story. “How’d you meet him anyway?”

“You’re asking me this _now_?”

“Well, we’ve got time.” Down in the street below, the dust cloud is obscuring anything except the occasional flash of Sandy’s blade and the flicker of movement as someone gets slammed into a building. Whoever this person is, Pigsy is not holding back.

Tripitaka sighs, shifting to rest her cheek against the back of Monkey’s shoulder. “On the road. He thought I was a god at first. He was really excited, talking about taking me to Jade Mountain and all the things I could learn.”

For some reason that makes it worse than if she’d said he was an asshole right from the start. “And then?”

“And then he figured out what I was. He was so angry…” She trails off, but Monkey can figure out the rest.

“What a swill of backwash. It’s not like we didn’t get mix-ups back in the old days.”

Tripitaka’s head lifts. “You did?”

“Sure. Some peasant that suddenly awakens in the middle of plowing a field, it’s not like they’re going to know what they awoke _as_. We got a baby demon wandering into the Academy every decade or so, thinking they were a god.”

“What did you do with them?”

“Found a demon clan to take them. Wasn’t too hard. The neutral clans were always happy to take them off our hands and in return they’d send us the young gods that went their way. Fair’s fair and all–”

“Hold up.” Tripitaka squirms, leaning over his shoulder to see his face better. “There were _neutral_ demons?”

“Well, yeah.” Monkey tries to recall if he’d ever told her this.  “There were always mercenary clans like the Red Thorns and Fire Knives who’d contract with gods. It could get messy if someone tried to weasel out of paying them – I think that’s probably what happened with the Kin – but for the most part, they were reliable. And everyone consulted with a Mountain Eye at some point to find out their future. Even I –” He pauses, not wanting to talk about the days after he’d fled from Jade Mountain. “I mean, even the isolationist clans weren’t all bad. The Steel-Flowers and the Blackwaters didn’t have much to do with gods, but they took good care of the humans in their protectorates.”

“Neutral demons,” Tripitaka breathes. She sounds excited by the prospect. Then her mood seems to shift. “What happened to them? Where are they now?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen a single clan marking since I woke up. It’s like the demons don’t use the old system anymore.”

“You think they joined Davari, then? The neutral clans, I mean?”

Monkey hesitates and decides to be generous. “I think he killed anyone that didn’t join him. And there would have been those who didn’t. Demon clans didn’t much like being told what to do, even by other demons.”

It’s not even a lie. Demon politics being what they were, it's unlikely they all responded the same way. The Steel-Flowers, for example, would never accept a male leader, no matter how good a deal he offered them. Even the evil clans had their infighting and feuds, so trying to wrangle them into a unified force would be like herding angry murder-cats. Monkey gets a small amount of pleasure thinking of Davari trying to convince the Ghost clan to work with the Lowlanders, or the Fire Knives to tolerate the Night Hooks. 

Tripitaka is silent a moment, thinking that over. Then: “I think Pigsy’s waving to us.”

Sure enough, that was Pigsy standing in the street, signaling for them to come down.

* * *

“Are you alright?” Tripitaka asks Pigsy as Monkey sets her down. Pigsy looks as out of sorts as she’s ever seen him, shirt torn, covered in dust, and a smear of blood down the side of his face.

“Fine, fine,” he says, waving her off. “Strike got away. Sandy’s been stabbed in the leg.”

Monkey tenses beside her. “Bond-weapon?”

“No. A piece of old metal. Looks like he was trying to slow her down, not kill her.” Pigsy leads them into the shattered front entrance of the monastery where Sandy is being bandaged up by some monks.

“It’s a deep wound,” the head monk tells them with a worried look.

“Is it near an artery?” Pigsy asks.

“No." 

“Then she’ll be fine in a few days, so long as she stays off it.”

Sandy tries to sit up. “I can–”

“Lay down,” Tripitaka says her, pushing her back. “You heard Pigsy. Stay off it.”

Sandy’s eyes are filled with tears. “I’m sorry. I had him. I really thought I had him.”

“It’s okay. Really. The only thing I’m upset with you about is reading my diary, and that can wait until you’re better.”

Funny that Tripitaka doesn’t feel so sick about it anymore. Angry, yes. Betrayed, certainly. But she no longer feels so horrified at Sandy seeing the things she wrote. That self-loathing has been shucked off, like a coat that no longer fits. They’re just words that she can put away and not think about.

Because gods can be wrong.

She’d known this, sort of. You can’t travel with three gods and not know they’re wrong sometimes. But there’s a world of difference between not recognizing poison ivy and kidnapping an innocent woman out of her own home. Gods can be wrong sometimes which means a demon can be right. And if Monica hadn’t done anything to deserve being taken, then maybe Tripitaka didn’t do anything to deserve what happened either.

“I’m sorry,” Sandy says miserably. “I was looking for an inkwell and I found scrolls written in the ancient language. I should have put them back when I realized what they were.”

“Why didn’t you?” Tripitaka asks, a little cross. “I wrote them in the ancient language for a reason. So no one could read them.”

“I wanted to know who hurt you. I didn’t think you were going to come back with us, and if you weren’t coming, I wanted to know who to kill before we went west.”

“Who to –” Tripitaka decides not to ask if that was an exaggeration. “I’m going to have a lot of things to say about this once you’re well.”

“You can say them now.”

“Not now. I don’t want to ruin the memory of you putting Strike through a wall.”

Sandy smiles faintly. It fades quickly. “I got lucky. He was strong. Maybe as strong as Monkey.” She looks up at Pigsy with a faintly puzzled expression. “And you knew him.”

Tripitaka looks at the god in time to see a flash of chagrin covered by mild bemusement. “What makes you think that?” He says.

“You recognized him. And he recognized you too. He called you the–”

“Alright,” Pigsy interrupts sharply, before Sandy can finish. “Alright.” There’s an uncharacteristic edge to his voice.

“You _do_ know him then,” Monkey says.

Pigsy sighs, rubbing his forehead. “I’ve lived a long time and known a lot of people, Monkey.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“No, I suppose it isn’t.”

“Did he work for the demons too?” Tripitaka pushes, not about to let it go.

Pigsy snorts. “I’d love to see you say that to his face. That would be a memory to savor. No, I knew him back before the uprising. A long, long time before any of this. He went by a different name, back then.”

“Back then _when_?”

Pigsy hesitates. His gaze lingers on Tripitaka’s face, faintly worried, like he’s trying to decide something.

“It was in the time of the last god-king,” he says finally, and Tripitaka draws a sharp breath. Sandy doesn’t look surprised but Monkey is downright shocked.

“You’re _that_ old?”

Pigsy gives him a flat look. “I hear one old man joke, I’m putting pondweed in your socks.”

“But that would make you as old as the Master! That’s…” Monkey pauses a beat, either doing some mental calculation or just unable to believe the words about to come out of his mouth. “That’s three thousand years!”

“Yes, Monkey. I lived those years. I remember.”

“But…”

“I want to know how he knows Strike,” Tripitaka interjects, because if they let Monkey stay on this topic, they’ll be there all day. She doesn’t know why he’s making such a fuss anyway; gods are functionally immortal. The difference between a few centuries and a few thousand years is largely academic from human perspective.

Except, she recalls with a strange shiver of shock, demons live for six hundred years. Oneday she’s going to be older than Monkey and Sandy are now and none of this will be academic anymore.

Oblivious to Tripitaka’s internal epiphany, Pigsy continues: “He was part of the old regime before it was overthrown by the masters; the remnant that had too much blood on their hands to be granted amnesty. Strike, as he calls himself, was one of those sentenced to imprisonment.”

Tripitaka nearly says it doesn’t sound so bad, then recalls what imprisonment entails for gods.

“Like Monkey? You mean, that was _normal_?”

Pigsy shakes his head. “Only for the worst of us. There’s mountains with some very dangerous gods sleeping inside them that are going to create a real problem for someone someday. I always thought the clans had the better idea about criminals, but I was never a master, so what do I know?”

Tripitaka shivers at the idea of imprisoned gods slumbering inside the earth.

Monkey speaks up: “So this Strike, he must have got out like I did.”

“No. He managed to escape and disappear before the sentence was carried out. Never did figure out how that happened, though I suspect we had sympathizers in the ranks. He must have decided now’s a good time to come back, now that most of the old gods are dead.”

“Excuse me,” the head monk says. “If he is who you say, then why come after Tripitaka? She hardly poses a threat to him, and his efforts would be better served at Jade Mountain, establishing himself among the gods there.”

Pigsy gives Tripitaka that strange look again. “He’s never been exactly rational about demons. Matter of fact they were part of the reason he lost his… why he lost something very important to him. It was only one factor, and there were other things at play, but he’d never be able to see that.”

“Lost what?” Monkey asks. Pigsy hesitates and shakes his head.

“No. It doesn’t change what has to happen and it will just distract you.”

“If it’s relevant, we need to know,” Tripitaka presses.

“It’s nothing but ancient history now. We haven’t needed his type for a long time.”

Monkey looks frustrated, and for once Tripitaka is in full agreement. If it’s so irrelevant, why not just tell them? But she knows from experience that if Pigsy doesn’t want to tell them something, they'd have better luck drawing blood from a stone. 

“Do you at least know something that could help us find him?” She says. “He’s the one that took Monica. If she’s still alive, he probably has her stashed somewhere.”

Sandy speaks up, sounding confused. “But I know how to find him.”

“You do?”

“Of course.” Sandy gestures. “That street is a dead-end. You can’t get out the way he went. Not unless you’re not going on the street.”

Pigsy gets it before Tripitaka does. “Son of a _bitch_. You said someone had been in your lair.”

Sandy nods. “That’s why no one saw him. He’s been going through the sewers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pigsy's attack is inspired by a D&D campaign where we dropped a bear on a villain. It was awesome.
> 
> Also, the way bond-weapon identification works is as follows. Gods think the weapons of their own kind 'taste' normal, while being repulsed by the taste of demon weapons. It works the same in reverse, with demons thinking their own weapons taste fine, but are repulsed by those of gods. (Note that Tripitaka pre-awakening didn't have any problems, because her abilities were mostly dormant at that stage). 
> 
> It can lead to some cross-cultural problems, because entrusting another deity with your bond-weapon is a sign of deep trust and intimacy, so having them say 'oh no, that's disgusting' is extremely hurtful. (And is one of the reasons Monkey is so upset at himself for not being able to touch Tripitaka's bond-weapon).


End file.
